Greece projects a 1.8% growth rate in the budget for 2023

Greece presented its 2023 budget to Parliament, which estimates for growth to slow to 1.8% from an anticipated 5.6% this year.

The budget is the first one Greece has released in 12 years without being subject to the "enhanced surveillance" it had been subject to during the financial crisis.

Christos Staikouras, the finance minister, emphasized this point. He also mentioned the economy's return to primary surpluses. "It is the first [budget] in the last 12 years that was drawn up outside of a framework of memorandum supervision or enhanced surveillance, in this way sealing Greece’s return to European normality," he added.

"It is a budget that highlights the hardiness and increased resilience that the Greek economy has shown during successive crises, recording its steady, strong and sustainable course of growth, as well as the significant decline, by more than five points relative to 2019, of unemployment, and reflecting the great potential and prospects of the country," he continued.

In a statement to the Athens-Macedonia News Agency (AMNA), Staikouras stated that "these figures are also confirmed by the European Commission, which forecasts that Greece will achieve growth rates in 2022 that are double the European average and the third-highest in the Eurozone, and triple the European average in 2023."

The administration should not ignore the fact that the world is still "unsettled, filled with high levels of uncertainty, rising dangers, new threats and great volatility, which affect our country as well," he said.

According to the budget, harmonised inflation would drop from 9.7% this year to 5% in 2023. Additionally, it forecasts a primary surplus of 0.7% of the GDP next year, up from this year's primary deficit of 1.6%. A primary surplus is the annual balance before debt servicing obligations.

In October, Greece's inflation rate decreased to 9.5 percent, which was lower than the EU average. From 11.4 percent in August and 11.6 percent in July, it had increased to 12 percent in September.

Inflation in the Eurozone areas reached a record high of 10.6 percent in October, up from 9.9 percent in September, sparking protests in Greece as well as other nations in the European Union.

This is the highest monthly reading that has ever been recorded since the creation of the eurozone. For the previous year, the 19-member bloc has experienced increasing prices, mainly for energy and food, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February has made the hikes even more noticeable.

The countries with the lowest yearly rates were France (7.1%), Spain (7.3%), and Malta (7.4 percent). The countries with the greatest yearly rates were Estonia (22.5%), Lithuania (22.1%), and Hungary (21.9 percent).

By fLEXI tEAM