Economy of Greece

An immediate impact was seen on the Greek stock market on Wednesday after the negotiations between Athens and its creditors hit a snag on Tuesday, inflicting significant losses, mainly on bank stocks, as well as the benchmark.

The Athens stock market had a day of high volatility on Tuesday on various rumors about the outcome of the all-important talks between the government and the country's creditors, with the benchmark eventually managing to inch up just shy of 600 points, having seen prices drop considerably earlier in the day.

A Turkish fighter jet violated Greek air space in the central Aegean Tuesday, entering the Athens Flight Information Region three times, Greek defense officials said.

The aircraft was not armed, according to the officials who said it was chased away by a Greek aircraft in accordance with international laws.

Greece's biggest betting company OPAP, will pay an extra 70 million to 75 million euros in tax this year under new laws on gross gaming revenues, Chief Executive Kamil Ziegler said on Monday.

The former state monopoly, majority-owned and managed by a Greek-Czech fund since 2013, paid more than 600 million euros in taxes last year.

There will be no Proastiakos suburban railway or intercity train services from Orthodox Easter Saturday until Monday morning two days later due to a strike by staff who are protesting plans to privatize railway service operator Trainose.

The strike will start at 6 p.m. on Saturday and is due to end 40 hours later, at 10 a.m. on Monday.

As investors continued to await the conclusion of the government's negotiations with the country's creditors, profit taking dominated Monday's session at the Greek bourse, on the heels of last week's mini-rally that saw the benchmark clear 600 points. The first hour of trading resulted in gains, but the majority of stocks sank into negative territory for the rest of the day.

Greece should not need extra measures to wrap up an ongoing bailout review with lenders, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has said admitting however that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) may have to bridge their diverging assessments about the state of the Greek economy.

Greece's private sector is resorting to the funding support of the European Investment Bank, seeking a share from the Investment Plan for Europe (also known as the Juncker Plan).

After Creta Farm, which has already secured such funding, Terna Energy has submitted an investment plan of more than 1 billion euros for the renewable energy sources sector.

The slightly increased chances of an agreement between Athens and Greece's lenders, thanks to Eurostat figures and politicians' statements, was reflected in Tuesday's session at the local bourse, with moderate gains for the majority of stocks.

According to a draft IMF memo in the possession of news agency Reuters, the Greek debt is dubbed as ‘highly unsustainable’. The report calls on the EU to offer Greece a ‘generous’ debt relief, underlining that restoring debt sustainability requires Greece’s European partners to give the country a large debt write off, besides the reform efforts.