BSE: Asking for investments, but don’t do it

George Φιντικάκη
“We have and the Greeks themselves to invest in their country. Can’t on the one hand to come to German investors in Greece and at the border to meet Greeks who…
seeking to transfer their money outside of Greece”.
The nails that had launched in October 2011, to the Greek business world, the then head of the Association of German Industry BDI, Hans Peter Keitel, to collect the answer of the then counterpart, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, that “in an environment of great uncertainty and great shortage of liquidity – as is currently happening in Greece – it is extremely difficult to undertake business initiatives and major investment projects”.
Four years have passed since then, along with three governments, a memorandum, a lot of extra austerity, dozens of new taxes, and little has changed from what is argued as the Keitel, as well as the Daskalopoulos.
Even the Greek businessmen have come forward to open the first path to growth, even though the conditions are yet such as to permit.
Certainly, many factors operate to inhibit and has been right the BSE when with every chance they have relied on, since:
– The Greek banking system is still in intensive care. While in Europe, companies borrow at zero interest rates in Greece are paying 7% and 8%. The country risk remains.
– Greece now ranks among the countries with the highest taxation, the rate exceeds 40%.
– The tax environment remains uncertain, no one knows if time will change.
– The Greek company is the only one in Europe that is required to operate in a regime of capital controls.
– The evasion of the gutter.
– The taxes on energy will remain close to 30%, a rate higher than in Germany, and much higher than in neighbouring countries.
These reforms sought by the business world, and it is for precisely these reforms hear constantly that there will be “next year”. These are exactly the reasons invoked and the Greek entrepreneurs, when asked when will they bring back the funds that they are on the outside, in order to invest in the real economy.
While all the great groups of the country have on the table a series of ready-made designs, at the same time find it difficult to manage, due to issues such as borrowing, taxation, capital controls, perpetually in the crosshairs of the tax authorities the real estate market, etc.
Opportunities however exist, “like money”, to paraphrase the well-known phrase. “So, it is a mistake to expect everything from strangers”, like it says in the liberal.gr executive of a large european investment group, “you first need to send the stigma that you trust your country”.
The point of view of our interlocutor, whether we like it or not within the borders, is no exception abroad. Shared by others in european capitals, the site of both the institutions, and the business.
The message is, in other words, if we don’t start investing in the entrepreneurs who are established in Greece, if you do not pay first themselves the stigma that they believe in their country, they don’t come forward to mobilise funds, the investments for which they talk constantly, they will not.
This is not the foreign capital to come en masse in the country, only and only because the evaluation was completed, the ECB will reintroduce – maybe within a week – the waiver, the government voted a few days ago the Development Law, or goes “limp-limps-a-lot” program of δρομολογημένων privatization.
Besides the fact that there are opportunities everywhere, he admits to no longer be open the whole of the Greek business, this at least has the necessary liquidity. The issue, therefore, is not to respond with “nails” in the next “nails” type Καιτέλ, sooner or later, someone well-wisher from abroad re-launch. But the business world to start investing again in the country, and not to wait for the further reduction of salaries or the release of the redundancies are expected to come from the autumn.
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