Eurozone crisis

Standard & Poor's has upgraded Greece's credit rating by one notch to BB- with a positive outlook, saying another upgrade could follow within the next year.

The agency says a potential future upgrade would depend on the center-right government's continuing to implement economic reforms and also on an improvement in Greek banks' sizable exposure to nonperforming loans.

Standard & Poor's has upgraded Greece's credit rating by one notch to BB- with a positive outlook, saying another upgrade could follow within the next year.

The agency says a potential future upgrade would depend on the center-right government's continuing to implement economic reforms and also on an improvement in Greek banks' sizable exposure to nonperforming loans.

Greece's economy will expand by up to 1.8 percent this year and pick up next year, stimulated by exports and investment, the country's influential think-tank IOBE said on Thursday, sticking to its previous forecast.

In comments to Skai, former leftist finance minister Yanis Varoufakis described as "nonsense" claims that, while at the helm of the ministry in 2015, he had lodged a request with Moscow to print drachmas for Greece.  

Greece will fail to reach its primary surplus target of 3.5 percent of gross domestic product both in 2019 and the next few years, the International Monetary Fund projects in its Fiscal Monitor published on Wednesday in the context of the Fund's annual meeting.

Greece's industrial output fell 0.6 percent in August compared to the same month last year, after a revised 1.7 percent drop in July, statistics service ELSTAT said on Thursday.
The index components show that manufacturing production rose 0.1 percent from the same month in 2018, while mining output decreased 23.1 percent.

More than a year after Greece exited its bailout programs, investors - in a historic first - have bought its short-term debt at a loss.

The country's debt management agency said Wednesday it raised 487.5 million euros ($535 million) selling 13-week treasury bills, for which the yield was -0.02 percent.

Trade wars around the world have a strong negative impact on global economic growth. The International Monetary Fund has warned about this.

The Executive Director of the Fund Kristalina Georgieva commented that global losses could total $ 700 billion by 2020, or about 0.8% of GDP. For comparison, this is the approximate annual GDP of Switzerland.

The government is targeting a balanced budget for next year that will achieve the primary surplus target as well as increasing growth, reducing unemployment and providing the tax cuts promised, according to the first draft submitted on Monday in Parliament.

Last week Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made his first visit to the United Nations in New York with a clear message: Greece is open for business again.

As the UK lurches from one Brexit catastrophe to another, with no apparent end to the saga in sight, it could do worse than look back to where Greece was almost a decade ago.