Athens News Agency: News in English, 10-10-14

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Gov't determined to combat bureaucracy

[02] Samaras: ND the party of growth

[03] Unemployment rose to 12pct

[01] Gov't determined to combat bureaucracy

The Premier made a surprise visit to the meeting and in his address he noted that exporters -despite bureaucracy hurdles- have managed to become what Greek enterpreunship should be -creative, bold and efficient- offering multiple benefits to the Greek economy and society.

"We are determined to establish clear and simple rules in the relation between businessmen and the state because we know that excessive legislation and complex framework are the source of corruption," Papandreou said. He asked for the help of the business world to change perceptions throughout all levels of the society and pledged that the government will take action for a fair tax framework. "We respect the operation of each one of you and we believe that inspections should be transparent," he noted.

Exporters asked the Prime Minister to take action to supporting young people in their business activities.

Earlier, Regional Development and Competitiveness Minister Mihalis Chryssohoidis had presented the four priorities of his policy towards boosting export activity, supporting innovation, liquidity and market inspection.

He said that a new development law would be put for consultation in the next two weeks and noted that a new law would include special measures to support export businesses, young businessmen and innovation. Chryssohoidis said he was determined to create a young businessmen movement in Greece. He announced that a draft legislation aimed at transforming TEMPME -a fund to supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises- into a Hellenic Business and Development Fund with the addition of 2.0 billion euros in capital from a Fourth Community Support Framework, was at its last stage of preparations and noted that the fund was expected to mobilize bank capital worth 3.0 billion euros.

Chryssohoidis said Greek banks were expected to offer written commitments to boost liquidity in domestic markets by using 30 pct of state guarantees offered by the state. He repeated his call to multinational enterprises operating in Greece to cut their prices, saying that there evidence that products were overprices by up to 30 pt in Greece compared with other European countries.

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[02] Samaras: ND the party of growth

Samaras said that the government has chosen to take the path of economic suffocation and that "it is incomprehensible that today, when the people are suffering, some government plans remain forgotten in ministers' drawers".

He stressed that "breaths of development", adding that ND is the "party of growth".

He also stated that unemployment, crime and the environment are among the most crucial problems, and acknowledged that mistakes have been made not only in the last year but also in the past.

"This government can't be negative on everything," noted Samaras, adding that "it is not possible that no-cost measures are not being taken".

Referring to November's upcoming local government elections, he warned that if citizens choose to abstain or vote for PASOK-backed candidates, new, harsher measures will result because the government will consider it approval of what it has done to date.

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[03] Unemployment rose to 12pct

The financially non-active population in the country totaled 4,261,458, while the number of employed people totaled 4,429,296 in July, with the latter number down by 52,866 people compared with July 2009 and up 9,473 compared with June 2010.

The government's 2011 draft budget plan envisages that the unemployment rate would total 11.6 pct this year, up from 9.5 pct in 2009, rising further to 14.5 pct in 2011 and 15 pct in 2012 and easing to 14.6 pct in 2013.

The unemployment rate among women was 15.7 pct in July, up from 9.4 pct among men, while the 15-24 age group recorded the highest unemployment rate (32.6 pct), followed by the 25-34 age group (15.8 pct).

Central Greece (14.3 pct), eastern Macedonia-Thrace (13.4 pct), western Macedonia (13.3 pct) and Epirus (13 pct) recorded the highest unemployment rates among the country's regions, while south Aegean (5.9 pct), north Aegean (6.2 pct), Ionian Islands (6.6 pct) and Crete (9.1 pct) recorded the lowest unemployment rates.

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