Trade with Greece
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tions– distinguished themselves in the fields of
export activity, international presence, research,
innovation and technological applications, environ-
mental protection, corporate social responsibility,
employment growth, e-business and young entre-
preneurship.
And this represents a unique symbolism of
prospect for the country and hope for the Greek
people:
Because all this constitutes the “other Greece”! A
Greece that fights, a Greece that stands on its own
two feet, a Greece that creates...
This Greece, whose representatives are being hon-
oured here tonight, is the one that will lead us out of
the crisis. This is the Greece that will create new
jobs for the unemployed. This is the Greece that
marches on in the face of adversities, that will
inspire young people; that will offer them a future;
that will keep them at home.
This Greece, the Greece of entrepreneurship,
extroversion, competitiveness, is the Greece of
excellence that, for many many, years, was “hiber-
nating”. I dare say that it was being persecuted.
●It was no easy thing to talk about entrepreneur-
ship. We had to fight hard to exonerate it.
●It was no easy thing to talk about competitive-
ness. As if there is some other way of generating
wealth today, unless by being competitive.
●An incredible bureaucracy was blocking every
productive effort.
●And all creative individuals were being socially
demerited by a web of ossified ideological
obsessions – which had died everywhere else
in the world and survived only in Greece.
Show me a country that prospered during the
past few decades without embracing these
notions of competitiveness and extroversion.
There is not a single one!
Show me a country that forsook these notions
and didn't go under. Once again, there is not a
single one.
This is a rule, with no exceptions!
For each country, prosperity means, first and fore-
most competitiveness, extroversion, innovation,
fresh opportunities for everyone, diffusion of oppor-
tunities to everyone. Without them, no society can
move forward. With them, all societies take off.
Even small or large countries, close or faraway,
within or without Europe, even those that had
undergone the adventure of the so-called “actually
existing socialism” and only twenty years ago were
in ruins, made leaps that seem unbelievable even
to themselves as soon as they discovered compet-
itiveness, investment, extroversion, innovation...
In his opening speech, the President of the
ACCI, Mr. Constantine Michalos, pointed out
that:
Especially today, during a tough period, the ACCI
Awards aspire to become a source of inspiration
for the entire business world, and also to convey
a message of optimism to Greece's society.
We want to demonstrate that the country still has a
lot of creative potential. It has businesses and peo-
ple that are boldly dealing with the challenges of our
times. That are not afraid to adapt to new realities,
to exploit new opportunities, to open new paths.
I believe that this message is very important
today: in a period when our country tries to take
its first steps towards recovery.
Amidst all the hardship caused by the crisis, we
can see a silver lining: the crisis brought its own
causes to the fore, in all their glory. It uncovered
all the flaws and problems that we found conven-
ient to hide under the carpet or understate.
The Prime Minister of Greece,
Antonis Samaras
