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Currently 31% of commercial companies in central Athens are closed. However, their number is gradually decreasing.

The recent commercial register data show that despite the clear signs of improvement, many of the closed shops are not going to start operating again. Figures show that 1,986 out of 6,377 commercial companies and properties for professional use are closed.

The differences in the proportion of the total number of shops and the closed commercial sites in the centre of Athens are clearly shown below:

September 2012

Total: 6,532 commercial sites, 1,850 closed sites, ratio 28.3%

March 2013

Total: 6,608 commercial sites, 1,903 closed sites, ratio 28.8%

September 2013

Total: 6,377 commercial sites, 2,072 closed sites, ratio 32.4%

March 2014

Total: 6,377 commercial sites, 1,986 closed sites, ratio 31.2%.

The present situation may seem improved compared with the previous six months, but it should be noted that for the first time the percentage of closed shops in the centre of Athens exceeds 30%.

In fact, the commercial centre of the Greek capital is shrinking and changing, and the closed shops are concentrated mostly where there is a concentration of shops as well as premises suitable for this purpose.

A significant number of shops in the traditional trade triangle formed between the three squares, namely Omonia, Syntagma and Monastiraki have closed too. The number of closed sites is also great in Stadiou and Panepistimiou Streets, especially in the region where they intersect Harilaou Trikoupi Street. Despite the impression of the existence of entire parts filled with closed shops, the overall picture shows that, actually, they are evenly distributed throughout the centre of Athens.

Some of the streets are ‘leaders’ in terms of the number of closed shops. The interesting thing is that these are traditional shopping streets such as Panepistimiou where the closed shops are 35%, Stadiou 36%, Harilaou Trikoupi 51% and Emmanuel Benaki Street 40%.

At the same time, the percentage of closed shops in the central streets of Athens alone increased from 18% in September 2010 to 31% in March 2014.

The most critical is considered the situation in the main shopping streets in the centre, since the increase in the number of shops that closed up until August 2012 has not only been confirmed but is also increasing as 3 out of 10 commercial sites are now closed.