Greece: Reality overcomes the country

With a high national debt and a strong unemployment rate Greece faces hard times. The strong increase of purchasing power during the last decade however makes the country an attractive retail investment location.

After the balance debacle in connection with Greece' accession to the Eurozone reality overcomes the country today. With a predicted public debt of 124% of the GDP and an unemployment rate of more than 10% Greece is the problem child of the Eurozone. Greece' purchasing power increase of the last decade was very impressive. At the present day the average purchasing power per capita lies at about 11 300 Euro and is 80% higher than in year 1990.

Thus Greece is an interesting market for retail investments. The small and middle structured retail trade landscape still permits some investments with good growth possibilities. Besides that Greece has about 11 million inhabitants and 15 cities with more than 80 000 inhabitants. Some of the interna-tional players like Aldi, Carrefour, Inditex group, Media Saturn, Praktiker are already at the face. And their figures seem to be more than compelling: Thus Media Saturn`s turnover was with 9 outlets in Greece higher than in Portugal, also with 9 outlets or in Turkey with 8 outlets.