1. THE WINE SECTOR IN GREECE: NATIONAL TRENDS AND REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION

2. More information in Working Paper No 15. Thank you for your attention

3. The present study was designed to explore the national trends and regional distribution of the wine sector in Greece, applying a time series analysis of the area under vines, holdings and their production in total country and by regions (NUTS II) from 1989 to 2003. More specific, the study aims to examine the trend movement of the holdings with area under vines, the area under vines and the wine production from 1989 to 2003 in total country and by region in Greece. The selection of this sector has to do with its importance to the Greek Agricultural Economy.

4. DATA The source of data comes from basic surveys of area under vines of years 1989 and 1999 and the intermediate statistical surveys of area under vines for the rest years. These surveys carried out by National Statistics Service of Greece, according to Council Regulation (EEC) No 357/79.

5. METHODS Simple Exponential Smoothing Method was used to smooth the data series. Trend Analysis was afterwards implemented on those data in order to make intermediate forecasting projections. – It was fitted the most appropriate trend model (linear or quadratic) in data, according to the value of coefficient R² Finally, compute the indicator “production /area”, This indicator describes the production capacity by cultivated area for each year.

6. Conclusion A downward trend effect exists in holdings with area under vines in total country from 1989 to 2003. Decreases, also, appear to the area under vines and the wine production for the same period. Despite the downward trend of area under vines and wine production, the indicator of production by area under vines has an upward trend. This increase is mainly due to the more systematic methods for the cultivation of area under vines and the implementation of high-level agricultural technology by most producers.

7. Figure 1: Indicator of production by area under vines per category