Trade with Greece
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with imponderables. How can you honour, let’s
say, your contractual obligations when somebody
else is blocking the roads with tractors or trucks?
Everyone must, at last, realize their own respon-
sibilities.
Which sectors of the Greek economy show
growth prospects and, therefore, are suitable
for foreign investment?
Lots of people say that this thing, or the other, is
not offered. I believe that this approach is wrong.
In the visible future, it is, of course, unlikely to see
an investor planning to build a car factory; but if
such an investor appeared, why not?
Nonetheless, even when we leave heavy industry
out of the picture, there are lots of activities that
could take place in Greece. In the US, for exam-
ple, certain activities are concentrated in sunny
states, such as Florida and California. In Europe,
similar activities could partly move to the
Mediterranean. For example, software develop-
ers could easily work from Nafplion instead of
Frankfurt.
Which sectors are the Germans interested in
investing in?
Presently, Renewable Energy Sources monopo-
lize ―any― interest. We agree that Greece’s
topography is favourable for this sector, but this is
not enough. We must work very hard to establish
a suitable environment and kindle the interest of
other sectors for Greece.
Christos Folias,
President of the
Arab-Hellenic Chamber of
Commerce & evelopment
How foreign investment-
friendly is the environ-
ment currently prevail-
ing in Greece?
It is true that the Greek
economy does not present prospective investors
with a very favourable environment. Important
and serious plans are quite often lost in the maze
of bureaucracy. This fact is, after all, corroborated
by Greece’s rather poor, and deteriorating, per-
formance in regard to international competitive-
ness indices; this picture, has, nonetheless, noth-
ing to do with the country’s actual potential. We
could do better, if only we undertook a major and
