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Over 20 billion euro is the annual turnover of the grey tmarket in Greece, according to data presented by the National Chamber of Commerce. "If you take into account that the main indicator of VAT is 23% the loss for the country only from unpaid value added tax is more than five billion euros. Not to mention the loss from the profit tax, which double the figure," stated in an open letter to the media the President of the Chamber Vassilis Korkidis.

All who have visited Athens and Thessaloniki at least once could not help but notice the huge sheets laid down on city streets lined with handbags, wallets, clothes, toys, chargers for phones and other goods. Most often they are situated in the central shopping streets right in front of the windows in the official shops. You can buy a bag that claims to be Louis Vuitton for just 20 euros, and if you bargain a bit with the retailer (who may not even speak Greek) you'll get it for 10 euros. In many cases it all happens in front of the municipal police and local authorities.

The survey of the Chamber of Commerce showed that 10% of the electrical appliances on the market are of unknown origin, 2.5 percent of the alcohol and tobacco products are also illegal, another 15% are added by small goods (type gadget), and the percentage of food products of unknown origin can not even be calculated. According to the report of the European Commission on the other hand only in 2009 in Greece were seized almost 22 million units of counterfeit of the original goods, which takes the Mediterranean country to the first place between the EU countries in the prime of street vending trade. Second is the Netherlands with 17.9 million illegal goods, in Italy have been seized 12.9 million, while Bulgaria appears in fourth place with 11.3 million unreported sites for itinerant trading. 64.4 percent of the illegally imported goods in the European Union come from China, other 14.6% from the United Arab Emirates, and 4 percent comes from Egypt and Cyprus.

The Chamber wants the state to tighten the control at the customs in order to stop or at least reduce the unregulated trade, which in times of crisis is the only a thriving trade. It is not affected neither by raising the tax burden after the increase of direct and indirect taxes nor by the decrease in the market liquidity. It offers goods of unknown origin and content, and thereby threatens the health of consumers. English proverb on the other hand "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap" can not even apply in this case. According to the New Democracy MEP and economist Thodoros Skylakakis the prices of those commodity are increased a hundred times, which certainly does not make them cheap, and are of poor quality, and ultimately they are extremely expensive.