Write an article that answers the following question: How many percentage points did the GDP growth rates drop between 2008 and 2009?
World War II (1939-1945) devastated the countrys economy, but the high levels of economic growth that followed from 1950 to 1980 have been called the Greek economic miracle. From 2000 Greece saw high levels of GDP growth above the Eurozone average, peaking at 5.8% in 2003 and 5.7% in 2006. The subsequent Great Recession and Greek government-debt crisis, a central focus of the wider European debt crisis, plunged the economy into a sharp downturn, with Real gross domestic product GDP growth rates of −0.3% in 2008, −4.3% in 2009, −5.5% in 2010, −9.1% in 2011, −7.3% in 2012 and −3.2% in 2013. In 2011, the countrys government debt reached €356 billion (172% of nominal GDP). After negotiating the biggest debt restructuring in history with the private sector involvement, Greece reduced its sovereign debt burden to €280 billion (137% of GDP) in the first quarter of 2012. Greece achieved a real GDP growth rate of 0.7% in 2014—after 6 years of economic decline—but contracted by 0.3% in 2015 and by 0.2% in 2016. The country returned to modest growth of 1.5% in 2017.