ATHENS--Greece's economy contracted slightly more than expected in the second quarter of the year, but remains on course to emerge from a six-year recession in the coming months, according to figures published Monday.
Fresh data from Greece's statistics service, Elstat, for the April-June period showed that gross domestic product contracted by an annual rate of 0.3%, slightly worse than a previous estimate of a 0.2% contraction.
Nevertheless, it was the economy's best performance since the fourth quarter of 2008.
Despite the revision, the second quarter data means that Greece is on track to meet its full year growth target of 0.6% for 2014, as forecast by Greece and its international creditors; the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
Since entering recession in 2008, Greek GDP has shrunk by more than a quarter--exacerbated by the waves of austerity measures imposed by international creditors after 2010--while unemployment has reached a staggering 27.5% of the workforce.
The revisions by Elstat are part of a regular exercise by Europe's statistics agency to keep their national accounts data up-to-date.
