Business expecting better days
Greek businesses are looking forward to labor market reforms, more efficient public administration and the promotion of entrepreneurship from the government that will result from Sunday’s elections. «Business expects a flight forward. A leap to tomorrow. It expects the formulation of a creative national environment that will mobilize instead of restricting, that will promote instead of discouraging, and reward instead of thwarting,» says the president of the Helelnic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), Dimitris Daskalopoulos. «We need an environment that will free Greeks’ entrepreneurial creativity and acumen. One that will form a broad social alliance so that we may increase national wealth and the quality of everyday life,» he adds. Businesspeople take the view that the country has seen progress on a series of key fields but a sense of urgency remains in a number of issues, such as research and development, innovation and pension reform. For SEV, further progress on these key issues requires social consensus as a basic prerequisite. They argue that the country needs to curb «reform phobia» among the public. «This will make possible the adoption of the necessary measures to maintain the economy’s high growth rates,» a SEV official says. As a whole, employers’ organizations consider a basic priority the solution of structural problems that afflict Greek society, and then the tackling of specific problems that concern their own particular sectors. «The primary expectation of the Greek Food Industries Association from the state is that it show resolve in the resolution of issues that have proved crucial to the future of the country over time,» says Evangelos Kalousis, the association’s president. The food sector is the Greek economy’s largest, accounting for 26 percent of total industrial production in value terms. Representatives of smaller sectors argue in much the same spirit. The clothing and textiles sector, which up to two decades ago was the steam engine of the economy but has since faced strong import competition that has forced many to «emigrate» business to lower-cost neighboring countries, projects the requirement of a «national understanding.» The goals are labor peace, the lifting of bureaucratic and tax obstacles and a rise in investment. For the construction sector, the major problem is the reappraisal of the classification of their licenses, depending on the size of projects for which they may bid. Company officials hold that the resolution of this problem will bring the sector in line with what applies in the rest of the European Union. It is generally considered the sector is headed for further concentration through mergers and acquisitions.
