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The Greek market is in a state of total standstill because each day that is passing by without an agreement reached between the government and the creditors is leading to losses of 22.3 million euro in GDP, to 613 jobs less in terms of employment and 59 companies are closing down every 24 hours.

According to a message by the National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce, coming to agreement with the creditors is required immediately, otherwise the economy will not be able to function. "Even if it is characterized as not very good, or below expectations, it is considered certain that an agreement will enable the Greek economy to start functioning as a spring, since the market will finally be allowed to freely operate in the remaining months of 2015", reads the message.

Liquidity "injections" cannot drive the market to recover

The Confederation states that the market is at a complete standstill, and liquidity "injections" cannot save it - it needs a "blood transfusion" to the amount of 25 billion euro to begin to function again, as the losses over the first five months of 2015 will hardly be covered during the remainder of the year. The message recalls that the past 5 years have reported a 26.2% decline in retail turnover, 37.1% in wholesale and 61.9% in car sales. The current account balance ended with a slight surplus of 0.9% of GDP in 2014, the growth in imports and exports of commodities being 4.7% and 4.9% respectively.

The market is in a "No Deal, No Grexit" state
 
As noted by the National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce, its official position is to put an end to the four-month long market stagnation under the mode "No Deal, No Grexit", by replacing the contents of the original agreement, namely "money for the debt and services for the country" with an economic strategy of the type "money for the market and development of the country."

95% of loan applications are rejected

The message of the Confederation presents some data showing the problem of the market. With regard to liquidity in the market, the commercial banks reject 95% of loan applications every day, following the instructions and the rules of the European Central Bank to the Bank of Greece, and now only 1 in 10 small- and medium-sized companies are turning to the systemic banks for loans. Furthermore, the use of financial instruments for business liquidity is not exceeding 40% and of trade financing 12%.

Minimum 1/8 of deposits are provided to the state in the form of credit

Deposits in Greek banks are to the amount of around 138 billion euro whereas almost 58% of total loans are worth 219 billion euro. A minimum of 1/8 of bank deposits have been provided to the state in the form of loans for the renewal of government securities. The amount of deposits withdrawn from December 2014 up to now is 35 billion euro, 4 billion euro of which being withdrawn in April alone. Banks are on the verge of collapse, as the resources available to them are insufficient due to the continuous withdrawal of money. Liquidity is not exceeding 2.5 billion euro and the Emergency Liquidity Assistance ELA is meeting the daily requirements of the systemic banks bit by bit. Furthermore, there has been a negative credit expansion over the past 52 months, the current levels being in the order of -2.5%. Banks granted 639 million euro less in loans to the real economy this March compared to the same period last year. Bad loans also reported an increase of 32% in the period 2013-2014. Compared with 77 billion euro at the end of 2014, bad loans now amount to 80-82 billion euro, including 42 billion euro in business loans, 28 billion euro housing loans, and 12 billion euro in consumer loans. Of all the 23 billion loans granted to small- and medium-sized enterprises, 10 billion euro are "in the red" and the rate of delay in repayment is 43%.

The government proceeds to "internal suspension of payments"

The primary budget account surprisingly reported a surplus of 2.16 billion euro in the first quarter this year whereas the estimates showed a primary deficit of 287 million euro. Costs were nearly 2 billion below the budgeted target, which confirms the assumption that the government has proceeded to an "internal suspension of payments," which is however suffocating the local economy. Moreover, the national debt reached 177.1% of GDP in 2014 and the budget deficit 3.5% of GDP compared to 15.6% in 2009. The forecast for growth in 2015 was revised from 2.5% to 0.5% or 0.2% and that for the primary surplus was reduced by 50% - from 2.4 billion euro in 2014 to 1.2 billion euro. Arrears amounted to 4.4 billion euro and the deficit in the social security funds to 349 million euro in 2015 compared to the surplus of 798 million euro in 2014. In the period 2009-2014, Greece’s GDP decreased by 24.6%, amounting to nearly 179 billion euro in 2014.

As for deflation, it reached -2.1% in April 2015 compared to -1.3% in 2014 and the indicators will further change because of the changes that will result from the application of the single VAT rate after September 2015.