THESSALONIKI — "Greece needs to enter Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which interconnectedness, automation, and real-time data are key," said Kostas Axarloglou, dean and professor.
"The development of a sustainable complex economy should be based on two pillars: extroversion and internationalization, and innovation and specialization," he said. A complex economy consists of interconnected industries that share infrastructure, resources, and supply chain dependencies. The Internet of Things, automation, and data-sharing are considered essential for developing such an economy. Policy frameworks for developing a complex economy are connected to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan Greece 2.0.
Greek manufacturing output has been decreasing, and the national economy is largely composed of small businesses with low labor productivity and wages. An economic complexity index rates the industrial sector as having a low degree of complexity relative to GDP. Approximately four percent of the population is employed in sectors related to a complex economy. These sectors contribute about 11 percent of the value added to the GDP.
Between 2013 and 2023, the service sector accounted for 68.6 percent of GDP, industry for 15.2 percent, and agriculture for 3.3 percent. Since 2018, national exports have recorded positive growth, driven primarily by the pharmaceutical and IT sectors. Greece imports nearly all consumer goods except for agricultural products. A Bank of Greece report indicated that tourism accounted for 13 percent of the national GDP in 2025. Manufacturing is undergoing a structural transformation toward sectors with higher added value, such as electronics and machinery.
No independent assessment was available for this report.