Recessions

Turkey's unemployment rate hit 11.2 percent in the February period, according to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜ?K) on May 15.

The number of unemployed people aged 15 years old and over increased by 401,000 to 3.2 million in the February period, which included December 2014 and January and February 2015, from the same period a year previous. 

Greek industrial output rose for the second month in a row in March, increasing by 5.0 percent compared to the same month a year earlier after a 1.9 percent rise in February, statistics service ELSTAT said on Monday.

The decline in oil rates has contributed to the further fall in construction material prices and the cost of building new residential properties, according to data released on Friday by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).

Turkey?s unemployment rate has climbed to its highest level since 2010, as economic activity slowed down in several sectors, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜ?K) has announced.

Unemployment increased to 11.3 percent in January, up from 10.9 percent in December, TÜ?K said on April 15.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which targeted 4 percent growth in its program for the 2015, has not had a very positive start. Estimates show that the first quarter?s growth rate did not exceed the growth rate of the first quarter of 2014 - in other words there has been a ?zero growth.? 

Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has said Turkish economic growth in the first quarter will not be negative, nor at its desired level, with an expected growth of 2.8 to 3 percent in 2014.

Zeybekci also said he expected a recovery in economic growth beginning in the second quarter.

Total credit in Greece shrank 1.3 percent year-on-year in January, with the pace of decline slowing from the previous month, Bank of Greece data showed on Thursday.

Credit extended to the government rose 8.6 percent after rising 7.3 percent in December, the central bank said. Lending to businesses and households declined by 2.9 percent, from a 3.1 percent drop in December.

Barely a year after emerging from a savage recession comparable in its intensity to the Great Depression in the U.S., Greece's economy is shrinking again.

Greece's economy contracted more than originally estimated in the last quarter of 2014 compared with the previous three-month period, a revised estimate by the ELSTAT statistics service showed on Friday.

By Sotiris Nikas

The Greek economy came out of a six-year recession in 2014, growing by an annual rate of 0.82 percent last year, according to provisional estimates by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) published on Friday. Yet early signs of the course of the economy in the first quarter of this year are generating concern.