German investors eye Greece
Renewable energy sources, waste management, pharmaceuticals, food and agriculture, logistics and technological enterprises are the six sectors of the Greek economy attracting the interest of German groups for further investments in Greece. German investments in this country already come to 4.2 billion euros, amounting to more than 2% of Greece’s gross domestic product.
The sustained interest from German investors was confirmed on Tuesday by Ambassador Ernst Reichel. “Greece is an anchor of stability in the region,” he told an online event titled “Greek-German Day for the Economy and Investments.” He spoke of Greece’s “courageous management of the pandemic” and noted that the country continues to have comparative advantages such as the high level of professional training of a large section of the population.
Reichel also offered some advice, stressing that the justice system needs to speed up so as to facilitate investments, while also noting the need for the efficient use of the resources from the Next Generation EU fund so that it becomes a growth level for the Greek economy.
In the event organized by the German-Greek Chamber of Commerce and Industry, under the auspices of the German Embassy in Athens, Alternate Development Minister Nikos Papathanassis said that a new investment incentives law is in the workd and spoke of three upcoming strategic investments in the energy sector, with a total budget of 1.6 billion euros.
He emphasized that the government’s main objective is to increase the contribution of industry in the Greek GDP from 9.5% today to 12% in the next three years and to 15% in the long term.
For his part, Deputy Foreign Minister Kostas Frangogiannis revealed there also are some more investments in the pipeline that will be activated once the pandemic is over.
In the same event, the head of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE), Nikos Vettas, presented a study on the sectors with the greatest investment prospects in Greece. It highlighted the sectors of agriculture, industry, construction, logistics, tourism and communications, which between them account for 38.7% of the gross added value of the country’s economy.
