AKTOR: News of concessions promised Al. Exarch Once again, AKTOR CEO Alexander Exarche announced that there will soon be news to strengthen the presence of the group in the concessions. A few months ago Al. Exarch had argued that AKTOR is in talks with two interested parties, one of which concerns a concession in operation. Discussions on concessions confirmed again two – three months ago when the company’s recent capital increase was announced. There is currently no news, as there is no news of the discussions announced by AKTOR’s CEO with a catering company. In the area of concessions, several believed that the group was discussing with Hochtief who left Olympia Road but remains a larger shareholder of the Aegean Highway managed by the Malak – Key department. However, even if Hochtief leaves, its percentage will probably be shared with existing shareholders. A better solution would be to acquire AKTOR concessions that remain in the ELLACTOR group. But the latter’s administration hasn’t opened her papers. At AKTOR There are also concessions with the solution of Attiki Street SA, i.e. the previous company that managed Attiki Street before GEK TERNA took over. Serbian President Vucic and the sale of Nova In Greece we are dealing with the scenarios whereby the Serbian billionaire and minority shareholder of the United Group Dragan Solac will get back the majority package that British BC Partners currently controls and will thus also gain control of Nova. But that is not what Solac’s sworn enemy and Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic says in public! Vucic, who believes Solak is behind the great wave of protests that continue with unabated tension in Serbia, said a few days ago the billionaire is selling his percentage and will raise several billion! Vucic’s vendetta with Solak lasts too long. Now that the tension with the protests in Serbia peaks, the co-stated media are daily decorating the United Group’s shareholder with a number of “disclosures”. He even prepares an extraordinary court martial for Vucic and his associates write the friendly means to the president of Serbia. The lesson of Cyprus for Greek hydrocarbons Despite the triumphant tones that accompanied Chevron’s entry into Greek hydrocarbon research, in recent days a negative development has emerged in Cyprus that should put things on the right footing and restore realism. Large oil Eni and Total put an end to their investigations in three plots of the Cypriot EEZ, as despite two research drillings, they failed to detect commercially exploited quantities. The glorious end of efforts in Cyprus reminds us that each drilling has a low success rate that does not usually exceed 15-20%. That is why in the hydrocarbon sector everyone starts with very little expectations, hoping to be disproved along the way. How is a project of technology done in the Greek public domain? A year after the date mentioned in the original contract the technological infrastructure supporting the Ministry of Development’s famous OpenBusiness platform was delivered. Still, the platform is delayed, but it’s working now. During the interval the contractor (Byte) lost the subcontractor who had undertaken to implement the project and was forced like – like trying to complete it. On the market it was such tension and pressure that one of the officials had a stroke during a teleconference! Please note that there was a written commitment by Byte that the new version of OpenBusiness would operate on Monday, February 3 after having to close the existing system on Friday. In general, the situation with technology projects is very difficult. There is so much that neither operators can manage them, nor contractors can deliver them in agreed times and agreed quality. 2025 will be very difficult for the IT industry and not only. The “war with cartels” and “the battle with the deep state” The government’s priorities in the following period were redefined by Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis in a radio interview. He said that orientation should be carried from ‘long’ to ‘small’, i.e. focusing on investment, exports, competitiveness and the ‘war with cartels’. In the same… war climate, the minister also referred to another “fight” that the government must give. Referring to the Pessarides report, and that many of its proposals have been implemented, she pointed out that much remains to be done with regard to the so-called deep state, and many battles still to be fought in critical areas. Two are the keys to the minister: how the state, public administration, public organisations, OSE coca, and how they change decades of mentalities. “But if I have to choose one thing, I would choose the deep state,” the minister stressed, agreeing with his interlocutor that a good example that strengthens his words is the EPKA. A radical reform of a body that changed him and greatly facilitated his operation under Mr Varveris. We don’t know if the minister’s report was accidental. But since it comes from the lips of the “Czar of Economy” someone, perhaps, could take it as a premonition for extending interventions to other public bodies. Overtimes, ‘exemptions’ from contributions and other … misunderstandings Yesterday, the Deputy Minister of Social Security, Panos Tsakloglou, ended in a television interview, the various scenarios that came to light about “relief” from contributions to overtime pay. It also clarified that an intervention in contributions to overtime payments (p. some reduction) cannot only concern specific sectors, namely focus and tourism, to which the digital working card will be applied from 1 March 2025. The sure thing is that especially in focus the issue of overtime and digital card “burns”. The column is informed by very competent factors that in focus, two out of three contracts are declared as … part-time. And this despite the fact that full-time contracts increased by 60% in 2024 compared to 2023! At this point, it must be made clear that overtime only concerns those who have been declared for 8 hours/5 days. This means that in order to benefit one of the 35,000 focus employers (who employ more than 242 000 workers) from a possible reduction in overtime contributions, they must have their employee declared as fully employed rather than part-time. We say this so that there is no “misunderstanding” as the new tourist season approaches, that an employer will be able to employ an employee under a part-time contract and declare the extra hours as overtime to receive the planned discount on contributions… “We look after to have” is not observed for the health of Greeks The Eurostat data on how much is spent annually on preventive health policies in Greece are disappointing. The figures of 2022 show that the average annual expenditure for every resident in Greece for prevention, i.e. for the early diagnosis of diseases and health problems such as cancer, amounted to just €75.84, with our country ranked only 18th place from the 27 EU Member States… Of course, the difference is chaotic in relation to European averages. Average expenditure in the Eurozone amounted to 241.68 euros in the same year, while expenditure in the EU-27 amounted to 202.15 euros. No debate on our difference from the richest states. In the first places is Germany with 458 euros, followed by Austria with 411 euros and the Netherlands at 312 euros. In a slightly better ranking, if again under Europe’s average, our country is in terms of the proportion of prevention expenditure in terms of total health expenditure per capita, where 4.51% is spent. In the EU an average of 5.49% is spent, with the first positions again occupied by Germany (7.85%) and Austria (7.44%). Trump tariffs in the EU may have serious impact on the economy The Eurozone’s exports to the US move around 3% of European GDP while imports are around 2% and therefore the economic impact of tariffs, announced by President D. Trump, will be relatively small at first sight. UBS argues in yesterday’s report that customs duties to Europe will certainly be imposed after the US President does what has been promised, as has happened in the cases of tariffs in Canada, Mexico and China. The report warns that the effects of customs duties in Europe can be much more significant than import and export rates. If, for example, companies limit investment or hiring. UBS considers that duties will be imposed on specific product categories in the second half of 2025.
The news that we are waiting for concessions from AKTOR Nova and the protests in Serbia are the lessons of Cyprus in research on hydrocarbons and how technology works are done in the Greek public sector
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