Is the IMF under-counting the Greek government’s financial assets?

According to the International Monetary Fund, the Greek government’s financial assets were worth around €3bn in 2015, or less than 2 per cent of GDP. That’s what you get if you take the difference between general government gross debt and net debt, as reported in the latest version of the World Economic Outlook Database.

Yet according to our independent analysis of data from the Bank of Greece — and using the IMF’s preferred definitions of what should and shouldn’t be counted — the Greek government’s financial assets appear to be worth around €30bn in 2015, or about 16 per cent of GDP.