E. VENIZELOS: We are here today with the President and the Board of the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce, S. Anastasopoulos, and with the former President – and current President of the Chamber’s Institute on Economic Policy and Public Governance – Mr. Y. Grammatidis, who delivered to me an impressive volume containing all of the reform interventions carried out from 2010 to 2013.
Here, the Institute and the Chamber took the initiative of codifying all of this work, which has also been set down by the OECD, which now says that Greece is first not just in fiscal adjustment, in primary surplus, in its return to the markets, in the sustainability of its debt, but also first in structural changes – those that strengthen national competitiveness and the real economy and put us in a position to confront the harsh unemployment rates.
Because unemployment is the country’s major problem. But it is only through growth and reforms that we will provide a definitive response to this great social issue that is plaguing Greece and the other countries of the European south, of the periphery, where we are going through the crisis.
S. ANASTASOUPOULOS: It was a great honor for the Chamber and its Institute to be here today to brief Mr. Venizelos on all the efforts the American-Hellenic Chamber, too, has been making throughout these years, not just to promote bilateral trade and attract investments, but also to help the government’s reform effort.
It was a great honor for us to deliver this particular volume, which really does show the work that has been carried out by this specific government – mainly by this government – to change the investment and economic environment in Greece.
Y. GRAMMATIDIS: What I would like to say, in closing, is that these reforms, which were set down and are the country’s total reform work, are not just reforms that were imposed by the international texts the country signed with its lenders, but are also initiatives of the government itself; initiatives aimed at passing and preparing the ground for the country’s new growth model.
May 5, 2014