Fund analyst points to higher Q1 2021 results as boding well for rest of year in Greece

AXIA Ventures on Monday pointed to last week’s announcement that Greece’s GDP in the first quarter of 2021 fell by only 2.3 percent on an annual basis (based on seasonally adjusted data), while increasing by 4.4 percent on a quarterly basis, seemed as showing resilience in the face of a more-or-less national lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to lead AXIA Ventures analyst Constantinos Zouzoulas, the result was much stronger than forecast, as Bloomberg, for instance, has forecast only a 0.5-percent GDP hike on a quarterly basis.

Private consumption, for instance, remained robust even with the retail sector on lockdown and operating on delivery-only basis, and with restrictions on non-essential movement in place.

Q1 2021 results offered a welcome respite and guarded optimism that the forecast for annual GDP growth will be higher than expected.