Sell-offs to bring more investment
The privatizations program is expected to fetch Greece some 26 billion euros in direct investment, the president of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED), Takis Athanasopoulos, said on Thursday.
Addressing an event organized by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE), Athanasopoulos said that the private investors which undertake the privatized properties will have to pay funds amounting to 26.5 billion euros. Some 18 billion of that will be invested in the utilization of public real estate, another 7 billion will go to the utilization of infrastructure (highways, ports, airports etc) and the remaining 1.5 billion will be invested in the development of the enterprises to be privatized.
While these amounts may sound like a lot, some 10 billion euros will be absorbed by the use of Athens’s former international airport at Elliniko and another 5 billion by highways.
Athanasopoulos also said that the sell-off program will create an estimated 115,000 new jobs in the period from now until 2016, which will rise to 140,000 by 2020. On an annual basis, from 2014 onward, the program will contribute 2-2.5 percent to the increase in employment.
As far as the target for direct state revenues is concerned, the TAIPED chief said that that remains unchanged: By 2016 the revenues expected have been put at 11.1 billion euros and 25 billion by 2020. Athanasopoulos said the original target for 50 billion euros remains valid but that a precise timeframe has not been defined as yet.
TAIPED intends to complete all sell-off projects concerning state companies and infrastructures by end-2014, he added.
