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Uncollected revenues and deficits in state enterprises are part of the topics that representatives of the monitoring mission of the Triple will check during their next visit to Athens. Although state revenues increased by 7.2 % in the first half of the year, this proved insufficient because the objectives in the Memorandum for financial assistance to Greece specify their value should be 13.7%. The Ministry of Finance should raise state revenues by a total of 15% per month from July to December to fill the gap of the first half under the agreement with the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB.

The mission will stay in Greece till August 6. It will run a series of meetings with ministers and other senior officials who have to provide detailed information on the pace of implementation of the fiscal consolidation within their own institutions. The meetings of Commissioners began early in the morning with the Ministry of Finance. They will continue with a visit to the President of the Bank of Greece Georgios Provopolos. They will meet later with representatives of employers and trade unions of the country (Federation of Greek Industrialists, Union of Civil Servants and the Confederation of Greek Workers) and will visit the External Debt Management Agency and the Audit Office.

Granting of the second tranche of nine billion euros financial assistance to Greece, to be paid in September, will depend on the report of the mission. The government must have found a successful formula that will solve the problems of the permanently losing state companies, savings banks and hospitals by the time for the third tranche. It is also of nine billion euros payable in December this year. The government of George Papandreou has to prevent the cost doubling of medicines and services in five major public hospitals, which have exceeded their budget by € 840 million only from January to June besides the delay in collection of revenue in state coffers. The Free Professions Insurance Fund in Greece also registered a huge deficit of around 70% which is to be covered. Public urban transport, railways and closed occupations will also need to be reformed so as to change from losing state enterprises to companies that gain income or at least earn their costs.

Meanwhile, PASOK government plans to review and amend the gross domestic product. Amendment procedures should be completed by the end of the year and it should come into force in the first quarter of 2011. GDP growth will reach 10 % or around € 24 billion, which will convert its current value of € 240 billion to € 264 billion. According to representatives of the Ministry of Finance the GDP level review will help the government integrate the effects of informal economy in the official data on the financial situation of the country. Areas where GDP is expected to show higher levels of turnover are wholesale, tourism, construction and services.

The change will be followed by a conversion of the amount of domestic debt to GDP, which was € 273 billion at the end of 2009. Its size is expected to reach € 300 billion, or about 125% of GDP with these indicators by the end of this year. This amount will drop to 114 % of GDP after the change. There will be inevitable change in the size of the budget deficit. It is to be reduced by about 0.5% -0.6% or about € 1.2-1.4 billion in absolute amount.

The last change in GDP was made three years ago during the government of New Democracy. Then the government wanted to reassess the size of the GDP by 25.7 percent and Εurostat experts finally permitted only 9.6 percent. Ministry of Finance reported that this time the Greek Statistical Institute and Εurostat will cooperate in the process of recalculation in order to avoid such discrepancies in calculations of the government and the Euro analysts.