page_title: Macedonia (Greece)
section_title: Economy and transport
hierarchical_section_title: Macedonia (Greece) / Economy and transport
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the Port of Thessaloniki from the White Tower.
context_page_description: Macedonia is a geographic and administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and second-most-populous Greek region, with a population of 2.38 million in 2017. The region is highly mountainous, with most major urban centres such as Thessaloniki and Kavala being concentrated on its southern coastline. Together with Thrace, and sometimes also Thessaly and Epirus, it is part of Northern Greece. Greek Macedonia encompasses entirely the southern part of the region of Macedonia, making up 51% of the total area of the region. It also contains Mount Athos, an autonomous monastic region of Greece. Macedonia forms part of Greece's national frontier with three countries: Bulgaria to the northeast, North Macedonia to the north, and Albania to the northwest.
  Macedonia incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads, whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. The name Macedonia was later applied to a number of widely-differing administrative areas in the Roman and Byzantine empires, resulting in modern geographical Macedonia.
context_section_description: The Gross Domestic Product of Macedonia peaked at €41.99 billion ($49.54 billion) in nominal value and €46.87 billion ($55.3 billion) in purchasing power parity just before the Great Recession in 2008; it has since then contracted to its lowest point in 2015, during the Greek government-debt crisis, to €30.85 billion ($36.4 billion) and €38.17 billion ($45.03 billion); a decrease of 26.5%. Greece exited its recession, which began in 2009, in 2016 but data from that year onward is not available for the whole of Macedonia; Central Macedonia grew by 0.57% in real terms that year to €23.85 billion ($28.14 billion), while Western Macedonia contracted by 10.6% to €3.85 billion ($4.54 billion). Almost half of the economy, 49%, is centred in the Thessaloniki regional unit, which remained in a recession in 2015, declining by 0.4%.
  The recession had an impact on the per capita income of the region, especially when compared with the European Union average. Western Macedonia, the region with the highest per capita income, saw it drop from 83% the EU average in 2008 to 59% in 2016. The per capita income of Macedonia in 2015 was €12,900 in nominal and €15,900 in purchasing power terms. The Macedonian economy is primarily service-based, with services contributing €16.46 billion (60.4%) of the region's gross value added in 2015. The industrial and agricultural sectors contributed €9.06 billion (33.3%) and €1.72 billion  (6.3%) respectively. The regional labour force was similarly mostly employed in services (60.4%), with industry and agriculture making up 25.6% and 14.0% of the labour force.
  Macedonia is home to Greece's richest farmland, and the region accounts for 9,859 square kilometres (3,807 sq mi) of the country's agricultural area (30% of total). Macedonia's agricultural production has historically been dominated by tobacco, with the cash crop being grown in large quantities due to its value. Central and Western Macedonia still produce 41% of Greece's total tobacco, but it only represents 1.4% of these regions' agricultural production value. Nowadays the regional agricultural economy is centered around cereal, fruit, and industrial crops. Overall Central and Western Macedonia account for 25% of the value of Greek agricultural produce (including 41% of fruit and 43% cereal). A brand identity for products made in Macedonia, called "Macedonia the GReat", was launched in 2019 by the Greek government.
  The European Union considers most of Macedonia to be a less developed region of the Union for its 2014–2020 funding cycle, and so the region has in recent years benefited from a number of megaprojects co-financed by the Greek government and the EU. These included the Egnatia Odos freeway (€5.93 billion) and the Thessaloniki Metro (€1.85 billion) while the railway network has also been partly electrified, allowing Thessaloniki to be linked with Athens in 3.5 hours through a high speed railway. The Thessaloniki Suburban Railway links the regional capital with Florina, in Western Macedonia, and Larissa, in Thessaly. Thessaloniki Airport is the third-busiest in the country, and the Athens–Thessaloniki air route was the EU's tenth busiest in 2016. Macedonia's three other airports are Kavala Airport, Kozani Airport, and Kastoria Airport; the two busiest airports, Thessaloniki and Kavala, are operated by Fraport. The Port of Thessaloniki is Greece's second-largest in domestic freight and fourth-largest in international freight by tonnage, while Kavala is Macedonia's other major port.
  Macedonia, being a border region of an EU member state, benefits from EU programs promoting cross-border economic collaboration both between members of the Union (Bulgaria), as well as the Republic of North Macedonia, an EU candidate country, and Albania. The EU invested €210 million ($247.76 million) in these three programmes for the 2014–2020 funding cycle. A €10 billion ($11.8 billion) Egnatia Railway crossing Macedonia and linking Alexandroupoli in Western Thrace with Igoumenitsa in Epirus was proposed to the European Commission in 2017 but remains in planning 
caption: The port of Thessaloniki, the major economic and industrial centre
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