Language

Official language
Greek 99%

T-index
0.26%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Dialects
Cretan, Tsakonian, Cappadocian, Maniot, Yevanic, Pontic.

Other languages
Turkish, Macedonian, Armenian, Albanian, Romani, Bulgarian, Aromanian, Ladino.

English
High proficiency (EF) – 14 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 12/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Athens
Currency: Euro
Population: 10,64 m
Population density: 83/km2

Economy

GDP: 214.87 billion USD (2021)
GDP per capita: 20,192.6 USD ‎(2021) ‎
Exports: $35.8 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 82.2% penetration, 8.50 million
Unemployment rate: 14.7% (2021)
Urbanisation: 79.39% (2018)
Literacy: 99.15 % (2020)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals with comma as decimal separator, space or dot as thousands separator.

Date format: dd – mm – yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 0033

Economy

Imports
$56.6 billion (2020).   Crude Petroleum ($6.07B), Refined Petroleum ($2.56B), Packaged Medicaments ($2.43B), Nitrogen Heterocyclic Compounds ($1.72B), and Cars ($1.37B), importing mostly from Germany ($6.68B), China ($5.56B), Italy ($4.8B), Netherlands ($3.27B), and France ($2.75B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 65% have an account with a financial institution
• 12% have a credit card
• 26% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is moderately easy to conduct business (rated 68.4 out of 100) ranked 34th out of 34 OECD and high-income countries ranked 79th out of 190 countries worldwide (2019, World Bank)

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 28th out of 39 European countries, and 44th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Exports
$35.8 billion (2020). Refined Petroleum ($6.88B), Packaged Medicaments ($3.3B), Aluminium Plating ($701M), Computers ($626M), and Non-fillet Fresh Fish ($613M), exporting mostly to Italy ($3.39B), Germany ($2.62B), France ($2.15B), Cyprus ($2B), and Bulgaria ($1.71B).

Main local online stores
Amazon.it, Apple.com, Zalando.it, Privalia.com, Esselungacasa.it, Shein.com, Unieuro.it, Eprice.it, Yoox.com, Amazon.com

Economic freedom
‘Moderately free’ (rated 65.4 out of 100) ranked 38th amongst 45 countries in Europe ranked 77th worldwide out of 186 countries (2019, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal)

Media

Media language Greek, English

Information channels
Television is Greece’s medium of choice, followed by the press, the internet and radio. News, variety programmes, comedy and game shows dominate peak-time TV. There are about a dozen private TV channels and myriad private radios. The media have been badly hit by Greece’s economic, social and political crisis. Facing declining circulation figures and advertising revenues, some outlets have imposed cuts or closed altogether. In June 2013, the conservative-led government abruptly took state broadcaster ERT off the air and dismissed its 2,600 staff, citing endemic mismanagement. The move drew international criticism and sparked a domestic political crisis. Some of the sacked staff occupied ERT’s offices and continued to make internet broadcasts. A replacement public broadcaster, New Hellenic Radio, Internet and TV (NERIT), made its debut in May 2014. Media rights group Reporters Without Borders has alleged conflicts of interest in the senior management of some media outlets, saying wealthy owners and state officials have tried to consolidate and extend their power through the media. The watchdog says journalists are often targeted by police when covering demonstrations and have received threats from the far right, the extreme left and anarchists.

The press

Ta Nea – daily
Ethnos – daily
To Vima – daily, English-language pages
Kathimerini – daily, English-language pages

Television

ERT – public, operates three national networks
Epsilon TV – national, private
ANT1 – national, private
Alpha TV – national, private station
Star TV – national, private
SKAI TV – national, private

Radio

ERA – public
Easy 972 – commercial
Athena 984 – municipal Athens station, one of the first non-state radios
SKAI 100.3 – commercial networkSfera 102.2 – commercial network

News agency

Athens News Agency – national agency, English-language pages
NewsIt – news portal
Nooz.gr – news portal

Internet Data

Internet users
82.2% penetration, 8.50 million

Share of web traffic by device
39.96% mobile phones, 57.57% computers (laptops and desktops), 2.42% tablet devices, others 0.05%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
52.59 Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
31.85 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population
144.3%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G)
87.1%

Most popular web search engines
Google (97.31%), Bing (1.84%), Yahoo (0.56%), Duckduckgo (0.14%), Yandex (0.07%), Petal Search (0.03%) 

Most used social media
Facebook (80.95%), Instagram (7.98%), Pinterest (5.01%), Twitter (2.79%), YouTube (2.52%), Tumblr (0.28%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
81 yrs (2020)

Healthcare Expenditure
7.84% of GDP (2018)

Average age of the population
45.6 yrs (2020)

Religion
Religion is vital to Greek culture, but not significant in terms of relationships in everyday life. It is vital when it comes to tradition and personal faith, but not in the workplace. 

Ethnicity
Greece is in the process of becoming a multicultural country. Many immigrants live and work in Greece, but people are not extremely tolerant of the situation because of political and historical reasons. You may hear racist remarks addressed to minority groups, but it is coming from a nation that was homogenous for centuries.

Graduates (tertiary education)
Greece has the highest enrolment rates in bachelor’s programs of all OECD countries among 19- 24 year-olds and the second highest rates among 25-28 year-olds. Enrolment rates in master’s programs, however, are below the OECD and EU averages among 19-28 year-olds. Overall tertiary enrolment rates for 19-20 year-olds and 21-22 year-olds are the fourth highest across OECD countries and the rate for 23-34 year-olds is the third highest (Figure 1). Women make up 52% of new entrants to tertiary education. Between 2008 and 2018, there has been a noticeable increase in the share of 25-34 year-olds with tertiary education in Greece, from 28% to 43%; the increase was greater among women (from 32% to 51%) than among men (from 25% to 35%), leading to a higher share of tertiary-educated women than men. Women have also a higher completion rate (81% compared to 74%) at the bachelor’s level.  (2019)