Market calls for immediate set of measures
The possibility that no party will gain an absolute majority in this Sunday’s general elections is a nightmare scenario for bankers as well as for the managers of the big institutional portfolios, as they officially declare. However, many of them view the scenario of a coalition government more warmly, but stress that the country requires measures immediately in areas such as education, where the results from reform will take at least a decade before being evident. There is no such worry about the course of the markets, as, according to big portfolio managers, the result of the elections will have little impact since the local bourse is to a great extent controlled by foreigners. A coalition government would mean that essential reforms will be delayed, as bankers mostly stress brushing aside any impact of the result on the credit sector. «They should let us take initiatives by ourselves, just as happens in all advanced markets,» they suggest. On the contrary, they add, on other issues there is no time to waste. The climate in the broader credit sector is such that the local economy can now deal with the difficulties that in the past appeared impossible to handle. So even if the pattern of 1989 is repeated, with the government formed by all major parties, the impact on the main fiscal indices would not be the same today. Things have changed considerably in the last two decades, say bankers. Besides the major institutional issues that require solutions in the period after the elections, there are also the problems within various sectors that need attention. The telecommunications and new technologies domain, for instance, has a quite long list, with issues that must be examined as soon as possible. Such issues are the demands of the Federation of Hellenic Information Technology and Communications Enterprises (SEPE) for the drafting of a national strategy to take Greece away from the back end of the lists of the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It actually proposes the establishment of a ministry for information technology and communications. Among the priority issues highlighted is also the greater interconnection with education, which is one of the main requirements these days.
