MItsotakis chairs meeting of Development Strategy Commission on Greek economy

The presentation was carried out by Nobel laureate and economist Sir Christoforos Pissaridis, who is head of the Commission; director general of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) Nikos Vettas and London School of Economics professor Dimitris Vagianos.

The Commission's aim is to make recommendations to the Greek government on strategic directions the economy should move towards in the medium term, in order for Greece to be comparable to the most successful smaller economies of the European Union, such as the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark..

Mitsotakis highlighted the need for a "strategic plan for the national economy, compatible with the need to protect our environment, which can remedy old structural problems," and further stressed that these are "the high public debt which continues to plague the Greek economy, institutional stagnation, a relatively low productivity, a limited ability to finance investments - public or private - negative personal savings but also the fact that until now we had an ineffective social focus of the truly vulnerable."

He also emphasized that these are long-term challenges which cannot be resolved with a magic wand. According to government sources, the high growth potential of specific sectors in which Greek economy is active were at the center of the discussion. These include energy and the natural environment, tourism and the agri-food sector, manufacturing, transport and logistics, the digital transformation of both businesses and the state infrastructure, and education and culture.

The policy plan, as per the commission's recommendations, which will propose concrete policies for the development of these sectors, is being drafted and will be ready in September.

At the meeting, the transfer of ownership of a land plot at the region of Perea in Thessaloniki to the Ministry of Finance was also approved by the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED) in view of creating a technology and innovation park, as some 70 companies and 17 research teams have already expressed interest with this scope in mind.