“With the Business Visa, we want to transform Greece into a business hub, creating ‘bridges’ with third countries between the East, West, North and South,” Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis emphasised in the videoconference he held today to present the new Business Visa to chambers of commerce and business associations.
Specifically, today Mr. Varvitsiotis presented to a large number of business associations a new tool for facilitating the issuing of Greek entry visas for business/professional purposes, which was established early this year by Law 4652/2020 and elaborated in late May in a relevant Joint Ministerial Decision.
As the Alternate Minister explained, the new Business Visa is part of the Mitsotakis government’s overall strategy for strengthening the openness of Greek enterprises and boosting the Greek economy. “Our goal is to be able to use all of the tools at our disposal to attract foreign investment and strengthen our economy’s export sector,” he said.
In this context, he added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is enabling the business community to take responsibility for inviting and hosting partners, commercial visitors and potential clients or investors from third countries, making it easier for these visitors to come to Greece for business meetings or to participate in business and commercial conferences or events.
Greek entrepreneurs who are trying to become globally competitive will no longer be inconvenienced by the difficult and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures currently required for a visa. The new Business invitation is a standardized, secure, simplified and very fast procedure that is expected to lead to fewer rejections of visa applications from professionals. Mr. Varvitsiotis highlighted that the new Business Visa and the major investments being launched in the wider Attica area create the conditions for transforming Greece into a real business hub.
The videoconference was attended by the Deputy Minister for Economic Diplomacy and Openness, Kostas Fragogiannis, the Foreign Ministry’s Secretary General for International Economic Relations and Openness, Grigoris Dimitriadis, and Government’s Secretary General for Coordination of Economic and Growth Policies, Viki Loizou.
Some of the associations represented in the videoconference were the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), the Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Association of Industries in Attica & Piraeus, the Greek Exporters Association (SEVE), the Piraeus Chamber of Small & Medium Sized Industries, TIF HELEXPO SA, the Hellas International Chamber of Commerce, ENTERPRISE GREECE, and joint chambers of commerce (Arab-Hellenic, British Hellenic, Hellenic-Chinese, American-Hellenic, Hellenic-Russian).
June 23, 2020