Greece has thrown out nearly a dozen items such as floppy discs, photo film and matches from a list of "nearly extinct" goods used until now to calculate inflation, the state statistics agency said.

"Ten old items that no longer represent average household purchases or are nearly (or fully) extinct from the market have been erased," the Esye agency said in a statement this week.

The eliminated items include common lightbulbs, ladies pullovers and retsina, the traditional resinated wine.

They were replaced by 26 goods more reflective of modern Greek society such as espresso coffee, MP4 and Blu-ray players, GPS devices, baby wipes, low-fat cheese, diet biscuits, mouthwash, sunblock, hair dye, dental bleaching, mastography and postgraduate education fees.

Greece has been under pressure by the European Union to streamline and improve its data-gathering after the present government in 2009 revealed that official deficit statistics had been under-reported by the previous administration.

The news caused a scare over the state of the Greek economy, pushed up Athens' borrowing costs and sparked a national debt crisis that nearly bankrupted Greece last year and threatened the eurozone system.