Rating of sectoral performance 2007-2012: BIC Rating System

The main analytical tool used to carry out analysis and ranking of business sectors is the BIC Index, which is the synthesis of three axes, which summarize the key dimensions of measuring entrepreneurial activity, namely liquidity, efficiency and capital structure. In this year’s presentation, we have modified the index, by eliminating the dimension of momentum.

The Greek economic recession still has an obvious impact on domestic entrepreneurial activity. However, after four years of decline, the situation appears to have stabilized.

For yet another year the defensive sectors, utility services such as water, waste management (E), health (P), education (O) and telecommunications (61) remain at the top with regards to sectoral performance. Simultaneously, sectors which are associated with shipyard activity (33), as well as the manufacture of cables / wiring and electrical lighting equipment (27) proved to be highly resilient.

Amongst the sectors with the poorest performance are sectors based on consumption expenditure of households [entertainment (R), media (59+60), trade of vehicles (45), furniture (31) and wood (16)], as well as sectors associated with construction (23), (non-metallic mineral products such as cement, tiles, building materials). A notable case is the sector of basic metals (24) (iron, steel, aluminum), which is influenced both by the decline in construction activity (public and private) and the high cost of energy.

The BIC Index allows us to rank the performance of sectors of economic activity from the strongest to the weakest separately for each year from 2007 to 2012. In order to move on to a longitudinal analysis of the development of sectoral performance throughout the period 2007-2012, we have developed a rating system of sectoral performance – the BIC Rating System. According to this system (based on the empirical distribution of the BIC Index for 50 sectors over a period of 6 years, namely a total of 300 observations), each sector is ranked on a 12-grade rating scale. Any improvement or decline in the BIC score of each sector from year to year is reflected by a corresponding upgrade or downgrade of the specific sector.