Greece's economic recession was marginally reduced in the second quarter of this year when the economy shrank at only 4.6% instead of the projected 5%.
Revenues coming in from tourism arrivals increased by 10% in the first half of the year and 15.5% from the period January to May. The budget cutbacks on basic services and the temporary suspension of tax refunds, may have helped the country spend less. Even with those measures, the country was only able to barely get by.
The Greek government also had to freeze public investments for the time being as part of its measures to save on expenditures. In addition to that, the higher subsidies awarded to the government from the European Union was also a factor to slightly improve the country's economic conditions.
So far, Greece managed to reach a current budget surplus of 2.6 billion euros for this year. Compared to last year's 3.1 billion euros deficit as the Greek Finance Ministry reported, it would seem that the government is on its way to recovery. However, the numbers reported by the Greek government did not include payments for debt interests and social security system costs, as pointed out by a CNN report.
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