Stoil Topalov

The US stock exchanged registered a growth this week, encouraged by the good results of the “stress tests” of the big banks, the stocks of the finance sector increased with 23%. Dow Jones jumped with nearly 3% to 8574.6 points and S&P 500 jumped to about 5%, closing with 928.92 point. In London, FTSE 100 registered a growth of 5.5% rising to 4463.5 points. The biggest growth of the main indexes registered the Japanese Nikkei – 8.5%. The Greek stock exchange continued to grow and closed this week with 2151.4 points or with 4.7% increase. Those were the only good news for the Greek economy.

Producers from Northern Greece asked the government for a financial help similar to the one planned for the tourism and construction sectors. The chairman of the Industries Association in Northern Greece said that productivity in most factories in northern Greece has decreased with about 40% and this has negatively affected the unemployment in the region. According to Imersia newspaper, more than 1500 factories are planning lay-offs very soon.

The government announced a deficit, for the first trimester, of ?6.9 billion of the state budget. This is mainly due to the fall of the state income – with ?20 million in comparison to the same period last year. This restored the expectations for new alcohol, cigarettes and gas taxes. Most of the new measures are expected after the Euro-parliament elections.

Meanwhile, it became clear that International Monetary Fund representatives are coming to Athens on Wednesday, in order to make a complete review of the Greek economic condition. The forecasts of the Fund are worse than the ones of the European Commission, which predicted a 2009 GDP growth of -0.2%. the forecasts of the IMF for the GDP growth are -1.0%. The international organization will pay special attention to the finances of the public sector, to the reforms in the social security and the labor market.

The employees of the Fund have demanded data, from the Greek authorities, about the economy progress since 1995 and their final conclusion will include a prediction of its progress until 2014.