Privatizations key to recovery
A series of planned privatizations, combined with measures to attract foreign investors, will boost fiscal recovery and development prospects while adding around 1.6 billion euros to state coffers next year, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said yesterday. Addressing the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce, Karamanlis stressed his government’s intention to press forward with «strategic alliances, privatizations, concession agreements but also public-private partnerships» over the course of 2005. «We are drafting a new legislative framework governing the issuing of licenses to businesses with the aim of restricting bureaucracy, stamping out corruption and creating departments that will directly and efficiently serve Greek and foreign investors,» Karamanlis said. He highlighted as a priority the deregulation of the energy market «which would attract new investment and create new jobs.»
