Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all I would like to express my warm thanks to the Management of Eurobank for the invitation to participate in this, the 4th Go International event, which will be taking place in Moscow on 28 and 29 May 2013.
At the same time, I would like to congratulate the bank and its personnel on the initiative they have take these four years; an initiative that has proven extremely successful. The participation of so many Greek enterprises points up the need that is met by this initiative: the right choice of product offered and the right preparation.
The success is also due to the exceptional activeness of our country’s business associations, as well as to the bank’s productive collaboration with the Foreign Ministry’s services.
When addressing such an audience, it may seem something of a commonplace to talk about the crisis, about its causes and the path out of it, but because repetition is the mother of learning, and as we have recently heard representatives of business associations sounding a little influenced by the trend towards populism that we can also see on the political scene, I would like to reiterate some data that, in my opinion, is obvious.
Of course, the crisis is an unpleasant experience and is very deep. But it is also an opportunity to revise the circumstances that led us here. What is needed, of course, is the reshaping of the state and the economy on firmer and healthier foundations.
This is the only way to bring ourselves into line with the social model that distinguishes the European countries from other regions of the world. And this is both a Greek and a European challenge.
For the past 15 years, the motor force of the Greek economy has been domestic consumption of imports – basically products funded to a great extent by the ‘cheap’ money that flowed into the country after we entered the EMU. Everyone knows the results: a constantly deteriorating balance of trade, precipitous fall in competitiveness, and a fall in exports.
Obviously, this problematic situation could not be sustainable. The economy has to be restructured if we are going to return to growth today. Our goal must be to shift the motor force of growth from domestic consumption to exports and the sector of globally marketable products. This is – allow me to draw this parallel – the Great Idea of our era: the internationalization of Greece’s economy.
Of course, the cause of the crisis our country is living through are not exclusively Greek. There are causes that are due to broader international problems and to European institutional shortcomings.
The monetary and economic integration of the European Union drastically limited the tools of national policy, and this deficit was not covered by compensatory mechanisms on the community level.
Today, there is a clear mandate from the last elections for our country to stay in the Eurozone and for our economy to be rebuilt within the framework of the Eurozone.
The country chose a difficult path – the path on which sacrifices lead to our emerging from the crisis and avoiding disaster. It did not follow the sirens of populism, and it did not question its European orientation. The price of this policy is, in fact, high. Particularly in the employment sector. But the first signs are already starting to show in the economy.
I won’t go into a presentation of data that show that the economy is being reorganized. I think that the representatives of the business community are the first to see such signs.
I will just mention that – according to data from the Bank of Greece – from 2010 until today, Greece has recovered 80% of the competitiveness it lost in previous years.
The increase in our exports has been spectacular. In the three years from 2009 to 2012, they increased as a percentage of GDP from 7.6% to 14.3%, and from €13.2 billion in 2004 to 27.6 billion in 2012.
It is a fact that the Greek economy is starting to gain international recognition for its efforts – and not just in words. The upgrading of the overall economy by international ratings agencies and the subsequent upgrading of the banks is without doubt – despite the low starting point – recognition that the right policy is being followed, and this will have a further positive impact in the sector of the international activities of Greek enterprises via the facilitation of financing.
But that’s not all. The fact that our country is fast regaining its credibility will have direct positive results for the international part of our economy.
I had the honor of accompanying the Prime Minister on his recent trip to China. I had visited China this past November, and I saw at that time the great desire of the Chinese leadership to cooperate strategically with us on both a political and economic level. Of course, at that time, in November, there was still the question of whether we would remain in the Eurozone. A question on which the Chinese leadership had a clearly positive stance in favor of our remaining in the Eurozone. Now that this question no longer exists, the Prime Minister’s visit and talks showed not just a general political will for cooperation with Greece, but for cooperation with Greece on very specific goals, and there were very specific instructions from the Chinese leadership for both state enterprises and private sector businesses to tighten relations with Greece, conclude economic cooperation agreements, promote tourism.
So this is the result of the progress that has been made with regard to our country’s credibility and the confirmation of the decision of the Greek people and the EU that Greece remain in the Eurozone.
I think that the prospects for enterprises’ activities abroad are particularly positive today. The high quality and increased competitiveness of Greek products is expected to become even more apparent in the coming years, as the economy starts to function smoothly – including the banking sector.
So I would like to congratulate Eurobank on this initiative it has been carrying out for four years now. I believe it is the patriotic duty of each one of us for the recovery and growth of the economy to come mainly through the improvement of the international activities of enterprises.
May 20, 2013