Interministerial meeting under Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kostas Fragogiannis with officials of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (MFA, 2 September 2019)

An enlarged interministerial meeting took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday, 2 September, under the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Economic Diplomacy, Kostas Fragogiannis, the Secretary General for International Economic Relations and Openness, Grigoris Dimitriadis, and the Secretary General for Coordination of Economic and Development Policies of the Presidency of the Government, Viky Loizou. The talks focused on the potential for funding of investments in Greece by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

The JBIC’s international investment portfolio includes $148.8 billion in loans, 17.2% of which are for projects in Europe. In October 2018, the JBIC signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Investment Bank on facilitating financing procedures between Europe and Japan.

The meeting included a presentation of the JBIC’s investment funding framework. According to the JBIC officials, “the bank aims to serve as a ‘navigator’ for Japanese companies seeking international investments.” In 2018, 117 investments worth €15.5 billion were approved for projects involving infrastructure and development of natural resources.

Before the meeting started, the JBIC officials spoke at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the Deputy Minister for Development & Investments, Ioannis Tsakiris, Labour Minister Domna Michailidou, and the head of the Prime Minister’s Economic Office, Alexis Patelis.

Also represented, on the level of Secretaries General, were the Ministries of Development & Investments, Environment & Energy, Transport, Tourism, and Rural Development. Enterprise Greece was also represented at the meeting.