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I find the fact that imports dropped by something on the order of a quarter between 2009 and '10 to be encouraging. That looks like there's considerable elasticity in the imports.

Of course, it may well be that that was the low-hanging fruit and they're about to hit bedrock [Jake's Mixed Metaphor TechnologyTM]

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 08:32:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
For mixed metaphors, you can issue a [Moustache of Understanding Alert] .

Economics is politics by other means
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 08:43:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I realised something.

Considering that Greece has 15% of GDP from tourism, is not current accout more relevant then trade balance?

Then instead of a trade deficit of 23 billion USD in 2010 (43 billion 2009), we are looking at 17 billion current account deficit in 2010 (34 in 2009).

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 03:08:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Tourism should enter into the balance of trade.

Current accounts, on the other hand, include interest payments, some of which would, obviously, cease. Unless I am mistaken on the English translations of the terminology.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 07:05:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Actually current accounts balance includes balance in services (that means tourism and shipping as well if I'm not mistaken - a big deal), incomes, capital transfers etc. Here's the Bank of Greece's latest (January 11) report on the current account balance.

Note also that less than half of that 15%GDP for tourism is foreign tourism. And while foreign tourism could indeed boom under a cheaper currency, domestic tourism would tank (actually is tanking already)

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 08:11:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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