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I fear the Greeks...

As the markets scratch their heads about the impact of the suspension of debt payments by Dubai, several other markets are coming into question.

One of these is Greece.

The fact that the Greeks are members of the Eurozone has certainly provided protection in the eyes of global investors. Other markets, such as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were said to be more vulnerable, yet now that Latvia has been refinanced by a syndicate including the ECB, IMF and several other states, led by Sweden, attention is turning to other countries. Whereas Hungary and Poland have devalued, Greece has not been able to, and now questions are being asked about the national debt capacity of the country.

The problem is now not just the perennial political instability of the country and how that has led to a failure to tackle the structural deficit, but also the exposure of the domestic banking market to the problems of the country's northern neighbours. The puncturing of the Bulgarian property bubble has been particularly painful to banks like NBG that had invested substantially in the Balkan markets.

More problems may be in sight.

I will be discussing this on the BBC early morning business news tomorrow.

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Newmania said…
Really ? I what capacity ?
9:22 am
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