and the Hellenic Foreign Trade Board (HEPO). Its
main purpose will be to better coordinate and sys-
tematically utilize the country’s resources and to
create combined promotion action plans, in order
to reach targeted markets and investors, and to
establish further synergies between investment
and trading. It is a well calculated move that is
expected to further contribute to the successful
implementation of Greece’s National Export
Strategy, introduced in November 2012, which is
based on the pillars of:
●export base enlargement,
●trade and investment promotion, and
●trade facilitation.
Another key factor for trading successfully is liq-
uidity, a field where we received valuable assis-
tance from the European Investment Bank, in the
form of a 500 million euro rolling credit for our
exports, which at an annual basis might well
reach the amount of 1.5 billion euros. Additional
liquidity assistance comes from the significant
regulatory improvements that we introduced into
our Investment Law, concerning:
●the possibility of early disbursement of up to
100% of the capital grant following the submis-
sion of a Letter of Guarantee;
●the freedom to choose Investment Law aid mix
(capital grants, tax rebates etc.) for investments
of less than 50 million euros, in order to rein-
force financial flexibility and improve the com-
panies’ cash flow and viability.
As a consequence, the total budget for applica-
tions that will benefit from the provisions of the
Investment Law increased from 372 million euros
in the second half of 2012 to 536 million euros in
the first half of 2013.
Finally, the fact that the Hellenic Republic has
undertaken the EU presidency since 01.01.2014,
offers new opportunities for our attempts. It allows
us to intensify our efforts towards more effective-
ly integrating the interests of all stakeholders that
trade with Greece with the corresponding inter-
ests of our EU partners, to create synergies and
economies of scale in a series of sectors ranging
from Trade Agreements of the EU with third coun-
tries (with the Trans-Atlantic trade & Investment
partnership [TTIP] being the most important of it)
to maritime policy, a priority that horizontally
crosses the entire spectrum of our presidency.
With these ideas and priorities in mind, I would
like to deeply thank all our trade partners world-
wide for their confidence and support to the
Greek economy during a very tough and difficult
2013. And I would like to assure them that the
year 2014 will be a considerably better and cer-
tainly more rewarding year.
Trade with Greece
39
