Over € 7 billion of investments on their way to Greece

The above was emphasized in an interview with ERT by the Secretary General of International Economic Relations and Extroversion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Giannis Smyrlis.

In particular, he informed that in 2020, 14 strategic investments were completed, the so-called "fast track" investmrnts, which amount to over 2.8 billion euros and announced that in Enterprise Greece there are 20 files under evaluation, worth more than 7 billion euros. This is happening, he said, because markets understand that investors understand that Greece is now more hospitable to them.

The Secretary General added that it is not only strategic investments, but the attraction of investments in general. "Strategic investments are big, emblematic, investments that pass fast track. But we are not talking only about them. We also have simple investments, which are not in the range of 200-300 million euros, but are smaller investments, which are addressed to all of Greece and now know their recipient ", he explained.

Furthermore, he announced that in the field of investments, a network is being created in our country which could more easily lead the investor to his last step in Greece. "We are preparing a program, in direct cooperation with all the Regions, with all the municipalities with HPPC for real estate.

We started with ELITOUR (signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation for medical tourism) "he said and stressed that in this way," we proceed to more specialized investments now, so that all interested parties, passing through Enterprise Greece, are guided correctly, avoiding 2-3 years of research on how they could make an investment.

As for the exporters, Mr. Smyrlis said that they managed and endured in the crisis of the pandemic and in fact until November there was a drop of 1% -2% compared to previous November, which he characterized as impressive. In this context, he mentioned the government's initiatives to help the exports of Greek products.

"We transformed Enterprise Greece very quickly in the field of exports, we digitized it, we created webinars for companies to get in touch with each other, where more than 1,000 Greek exporters participated, exporters were trained so that they could digitize their own companies, we created a pilot partnership with ebay, which will allow them to enter e-commerce "he said specifically.

At the same time, he pointed out that these tools are necessary for the post-Covid era and in combination with the extroversion, along with the participation in big exhibitions, in order to strengtjen Greek exports, and with the rebranding of the country, another big project of Greece in full cooperation with Enterprise Greece, we will achieve our goal, which lies in the recognition of the Greek product.

Finally, he stressed the importance of the integration of Enterprise Greece in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasizing that this is a very important reform that has already shown the first positive results.