Trade with Greece
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t is telling that Greece has chosen forty-two
projects, budgeted at a total of 5.6 billion
euros, for inclusion into the Juncker plan,
while, according to the Ministry of Infrastructure,
the government has also submitted proposals for
the inclusion of additional projects worth more
than 12 billion euros, mainly concerning metro
line extensions, road and rail infrastructures, as
well as logistics centres.
One of the projects is the “railway Egnatia”, which
will cost more than 5 billion euros. It should be
noted that the Alexandroupolis-Ormenio section
has already been tendered, with the initial aim of
facilitating freight movement along the Istanbul-
Thessaloniki section, to be followed by the sec-
tion that will connect Thessaloniki with western
Macedonia.
Large infrastructure projects, which used to be
the Greek economy’s growth engine, were affect-
ed by the recession of the past few years. It
should be noted that there have been very few
infrastructure investments in Greece since the
onset of the crisis; such investments plummeted
as a percentage of GDP from 3.7% in 2006 to
1.1% in 2015, reduced by almost 5.7 billion euros
year-on-year. Infrastructure projects were greatly
affected by deep recession and fiscal constraints.
The backlog of infrastructure projects in Greece
stands at 20.7 billion euros, while work-in-
progress stands at 12.3 billion euros. According to
PWC, out of 78 projects scheduled for delivery by
2022, energy accounts for 33%, railway
metro/tram projects account for 29% and road
transport accounts for 25%.
In any case, the government is trying to make up for
lost time, emphasising on the “Juncker package” in
2016, in order to get the projects off the ground.
The Ministry of Development has already select-
ed 42 projects —18 purely private and the rest in
PPPs form— for the “Juncker package”, which
does not provide for direct financing, but is “a
mechanism for supporting private projects,
through the provision of guarantees and low inter-
est rates.”
Based on its planning, in the near future the ministry
will focus on putting together two main “bundles” of
projects:
• Developing a network of new marinas, com-
bined with projects aimed at the upgrading and
further development of existing ones.
• Identifying and grouping public buildings in
need of support and upgrading (static, energy,
operational, aesthetic).
That said, the pre-selection conducted by the
Ministry of Economy led to the creation of a list
that includes the following project sectors and
categories:
