Study: Capital Controls, another blow for Greek businesses

Endeavour Greece studied the extent to which local Greek businesses are suffering

Endeavour Greece, an international nonprofit organization, studied 300 businesses in Greece from July 13-17 and found that 58% were influenced by capital controls. 60% noted a significant reduction to their sales with 18% of these businesses noting a drop larger than 50%.

A lucky 27% of businesses did not note any changes to sales with 4% of businesses noting an increase. 45% of business delayed payments to suppliers, and slightly less had problems paying wages. 46% of the Greek businesses participating in the study had accounts abroad, whereas 15% only accept cash. 11% were forced to freeze production as a result of capital controls.

“Many of these companies cannot import raw material or have access to foreign services and infrastructure,” the group said in a statement, adding that 23 percent “plan to transfer their headquarters abroad for security, cash flow and stability reasons.”

Noteworthy is the fact that 70% of businesses believe that capital controls will run for longer than 4 months.