FRANKFURT (AFP) ― The Greek economy is likely to start growing again in 2014, a top European Central Bank official said in a newspaper interview released Friday.

“Greece will probably be able to show economic growth again in 2014,” ECB executive board member Joerg Asmussen told the regional daily Rheinische Post in a pre-release of an interview to published in the newspaper’s Saturday edition.

“Those who at the beginning of the year had predicted that Greece would leave the euro area were completely wrong,” Asmussen said.

Athens is forecasting a contraction in the Greek economy for the sixth year in a row next year, with gross domestic product set to shrink by 4.5 percent in 2013 after an expected decline of 6.5 percent this year.

Asmussen praised Greece’s efforts to rein in its deficit, in spite of the shrinking economy.

“Between 2009 and 2012, the budget deficit has been cut by nine percentage points of GDP. That’s a remarkable achievement,” he said.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also praised Athens’ efforts in an interview Friday.

“Since the elections in June, the government in Greece has for the first time seriously implemented reforms, brought down its deficit and sharply reduced wage costs,” Schaeuble told the German news agency DPA in an interview.