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Greece: Investments Reach 15% Of GDP

Investments in Greece grew by 2.2% annually from January to September 2024, as reported by Alpha Bank’s economic bulletin. This increase is moderate compared to the 2025 budget estimate of 6.7% growth for the entire year.

Despite the moderate increase in 2024, investments have consistently contributed positively to Greece’s GDP in recent years, now accounting for approximately 15% of GDP (since the end of 2023). This is notably lower than the average 22% of GDP in the eurozone.

The bank’s economists estimate that the government’s forecasted 8.4% increase in investments in 2025 could push the share of investments to 17.5% of GDP, narrowing the “investment gap” compared to the eurozone forecast of 20.8%.

Key Numbers:

  • Annual investment growth (January-September 2024): 2.2%.
  • Investments as a percentage of GDP: 15% in Greece, compared to 22% in the eurozone.
  • Projected public investments (2025-2028): €64.2 billion.
  • Foreign direct investment: Exceeds €5 billion annually on average in the last five years.

Key Sectors:

  • Industry: Investments in the industry have been growing continuously since 2018, reaching €5.4 billion in 2023.
  • Public Administration & Defense: Exceeded €5.3 billion in 2023.
  • Real Estate: Investments reached €5 billion in 2023.

More than half of total investments are concentrated in these three sectors, while sectors such as Transport & Storage, Education, and Professional Services have seen a decline.

Significant changes have occurred in the composition of investments since the pre-crisis period, when housing represented over 40% of total investments and approximately 10% of GDP. In 2024, it is estimated that housing will represent 14.3% of total investments and 2.3% of GDP.

Public investments are expected to play a crucial role in the medium term, with €64.2 billion projected for the 2025-2028 period. This includes investments from the EU and the Recovery Fund, with €9.8 billion expected from the Recovery Fund in 2025 and €11.6 billion in 2026. Recovery Fund grants are expected to end by mid-2026, although loan disbursements will continue until 2027-2028.

Foreign direct investment has shown promising growth in recent years, with an average of over €5 billion per year (excluding 2020). A recent survey revealed that 50% of respondents plan to expand or develop activities in Greece in the coming year, compared to 30% in 2019.

Greece was ranked 19th among the most attractive EU countries for foreign investment in 2024. This ranking highlights the intensifying competition and underscores the need for further improvements to the country’s investment environment.

OpenAI Releases GDPval Benchmark To Gauge AI Performance Against Human Experts

New Benchmark Sheds Light on AI’s Capabilities

OpenAI has unveiled GDPval, a new benchmark designed to evaluate its AI models against human professionals across a broad spectrum of industries. This initiative represents a critical step in understanding how far today’s AI is from matching or surpassing the work quality of experts in sectors such as healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and government.

Methodology and Industry Scope

The GDPval benchmark focuses on nine major industries contributing to America’s gross domestic product and tests AI performance in 44 distinct occupations—from software engineering to nursing and journalism. In its initial version, GDPval-v0, industry professionals compared reports generated by AI models with those produced by their human counterparts. For instance, investment bankers were tasked with evaluating competitor landscape analyses for the last-mile delivery industry, ensuring that the assessment reflects real-world complexity.

Comparative Performance: AI Advances and Limitations

Results indicate promising progress; OpenAI’s GPT-5-high, an enhanced iteration of its flagship model, achieved a win rate of 40.6% when compared head-to-head with industry veterans. More notably, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.1 reached nearly 49% on similar criteria. However, OpenAI acknowledges that these models are not yet positioned to replace human labor entirely, as the current iteration of GDPval covers a narrow slice of actual job responsibilities.

Expert Insights and Future Directions

In a discussion with TechCrunch, OpenAI’s chief economist, Dr. Aaron Chatterji, noted that the benchmark’s favorable outcomes suggest professionals may soon delegate routine tasks to AI. This, he argued, will free up valuable time for focusing on higher-impact work. Industry observer Tejal Patwardhan also expressed optimism, emphasizing the significant performance leap from GPT-4’s 13.7% score to nearly triple that figure with GPT-5.

Benchmarking And The Road To Comprehensive AI Evaluation

While GDPval represents an early milestone, it aligns with a broader effort among Silicon Valley titans to create robust testing frameworks, such as AIME 2025 and GPQA Diamond, that better quantify AI proficiency for real-world applications. OpenAI plans to expand GDPval to encapsulate more industries and interactive workflows, aiming to bolster its claims about AI’s growing economic value.

As the benchmark evolves, GDPval could play an instrumental role in the ongoing debate around artificial general intelligence, highlighting the potential and limitations of AI models poised to reshape the modern workforce.

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