POLICY ROADMAP

Real GDP in Greece was expected to have grown by just under 2% in 2023, due to increases in private consumption and in fixed capital formation. Unemployment was falling slowly. Inflation was just under 5% in the period January–October 2023, well down on a year earlier. Despite this reduction, inflation was still increasing business costs, including borrowing.

The Greek government had acted to offset increased energy costs for business to stabilize prices. An important mechanism to support SMEs in Greece is European monies through the structural funds in place until 2027, followed by additional resources from the new Resilience Fund.

2023 Framework Conditions Review1

The overall entrepreneurial environment in Greece has been improving slowly, but remains fairly weak. In 2023 Greece had just three Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions (EFCs) scored as sufficient or better, the same as the previous year, meaning that 10 were considered less than sufficient. Scores were little changed from the previous year, with, in common with many economies, Physical Infrastructure
scoring highest and Entrepreneurial Education at School lowest. Relative to other economies Physical Infrastructure was poor nonetheless, ranked at 43rd out of 49 GEM economies, as was Entrepreneurial Education Post-School.

Greece’s score for the overall quality of its entrepreneurial environment has been increasing slowly in recent years, reaching 4.6 in 2022 and 2023, ranking 24th in 2023 — improving but not quite sufficient.

In 2023, these national experts were asked new questions about the quality of social support for women entrepreneurs, and their access to resources compared to men. Greece scored poorly for social support with 2.8, much less than sufficient and ranked 42nd of the 49 economies participating in the GEM

National Expert Survey (NES). For comparative access to resources Greece scored much better, with 5.2, better than sufficient and ranked 23rd.

2023 Entrepreneurial Activity Review

Despite Greece’s growing economy, one in two adults reported that their household income had fallen in 2023, the second highest proportion in Level B and the sixth highest of the 45 economies that participated in the GEM Adult Population Survey (APS).

Entrepreneurship had a fairly low public profile in Greece, with one in three adults knowing someone who had recently started a business (second lowest proportion in GEM behind Thailand), less than one
in two adults seeing good opportunities to start a business and few more considering themselves to have the skills and experience to be able to start a business themselves. Of those seeing good opportunities, just over one in two would not start a business for fear it might fail. Business intentions were low, with less than one in 10 of those not already starting or running a new business expecting to do so within the next three years.

The percentage of adults in Greece who were already starting or running a new business was
a modest 6.7%, fourth lowest in GEM jointly with Lithuania, but an improvement on the 4.9% of the previous year. The male rate was 7.6%, with just 5.9% of women starting or running a new business, with at least some of the difference perhaps attributable to the lack of social support for women entrepreneurs noted earlier. Established Business Ownership was high at 14.7%, above that of the previous year and third highest in GEM behind Ecuador and the Republic of Korea.

More than seven in 10 new entrepreneurs in Greece agreed with the motivation to earn a living because jobs are scarce. Nearly one in two expected to use more digital technology in the next six months, and a relatively high two in five had customers outside Greece. Around three in 10 of those starting or running new businesses were solo entrepreneurs with one owner and no employees. Nevertheless, more than one in 10 new entrepreneurs expected to employ at least another six people over the next five years.

1 A brief description of the GEM approach is given in the footnote on p. 107.