Economic growth for Greece’s trade partners and Greek export growth

This note investigates two issues: First, to identify the most important trade partners of Greece over the last twenty years and how their relative significance has evolved. Second, to examine how sensitive is the Greek export growth relative to the economic growth of Greece’s trade partners?The Greek economy is in recession for the seventh consecutive year and as a result it is imperative to explore potential sources of growth. Export activity is a significant factor that stimulates economic development (the export led growth hypothesis). International trade has increased in the last decades, contributing to the wealth of the nations on the one hand and making the world more interdependent on the other. The share of Greek exports in the GDP has been increasing steadily from 14.29% in 1996 to 21.17% in 2006, reaching 30.11% in 2015. Although Greek exports are rising as a share of GDP, their composition differs to the rest of the EU as service exports are dominant in the Greek case (relative to traded goods). The subsequent analysis focuses only on Greek goods exports.