During an online event held by the Hellenic-German Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, 13 October, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Economic Diplomacy and Openness, Kostas Fragogiannis, highlighted the strong interest of German investors in many sectors of the Greek economy. These sectors, he said, include energy, infrastructure, tourism, pharmaceuticals, waste, agri-food and technological services.
Germany has been and continues to be the largest foreign investor in Greece. German enterprises have investments of over €4 billion in Greece, accounting for 3% of Greek GDP, making Germany the No 1 foreign investor in our country.
In this context, Mr. Fragogiannis pointed out that in 2020 – in spite of the difficulties brought by the pandemic – the Greek-German Economic Forum was hosted successfully in March, in Berlin, to promote cooperation between Greek and German entrepreneurs in the aforementioned sectors, and through to today, Enterprise Greece and other government organizations have held a number of online events promoting the investment opportunities in key sectors.
Mr. Fragogiannis focused in particular on the sector of green energy, including renewable sources (wind, solar), in which German interest has always been strong, with many major companies helping to develop the sector – as with the projects for electrical connectivity and autonomy of islands – in combination with the planned phase-out of lignite and the investment plans taking shape in the regions of Western Macedonia and Megalopoli, which are drawing interest from very large groups.
Increased interest, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs added, has also been seen from the German side in production of pharmaceutical products in Greece, development of R&D structures in the technology sector, and waste management and circular economy, with top companies approaching us and expressing interest in both regulatory and business developments in their sectors, constantly gathering information that will help them plan their next investment move.
An investment in RES, he said, has already been included in the Strategic Investments Law. The investment in question is for a 70 MW solar thermal power plant in Crete. The electricity produced by this plant will cover the energy needs of 50,000 households. The total investment comes to €268 million.
A new investment was recently submitted by a German company for the development of 794 MW solar parks in Thessaly and Western Macedonia. This investment, which is currently in the assessment stage, has a budget of €693 million.
Mr. Fragogiannis highlighted that it has become clear to German investors that “our country has made great strides in improving the business environment, especially in the past year, with major interventions in taxation, incentives for increasing state revenues, digitization of services, a more efficient public sector, simplification of licensing procedures, investment incentives.” He underscored that “the Greek government’s immediate goal is to strengthen productivity, the job market and investments, while the main target for the Greek economy in the coming years is a systematic increase in productivity and openness, as well as closer links between manufacturing and technology/innovation. He also made it clear that Greece has highly trained human resources, which German companies take seriously into account, with the latest example being the confidence Germany’s TeamViewer showed in Greece by choosing to open its new research and development center in the city of Ioannina.
October 13, 2020