Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-06-22

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

CONTENTS

[01] Greek debt unsustainable, needs generous relief, Velculescu says

[02] Lamda Development ready to begin works in Hellinikon

[01] Greek debt unsustainable, needs generous relief, Velculescu says

Addressing an Economist conference in Athens, Velculescu said that the Greek programme was not sustainable as it included very ambitious targets on primary surplus, while reforms are limited in taxation and cutting pensions. On the contrary, she argued that structural reforms were necessary to allow the Greek economy to return to stabilization. Only a combination of all these, will eliminate once and for all any future plans on Grexit. argued that the Greek debt is clearly unsustainable and that debt relief is necessary, in her appearance at the Economist conference in Athens. She said that the IMF has committed t participate in the funding of the programme but this will happen only after Europe pledge on sustainability of Greek debt. Debt relief measures must be compatible with a sustainability survey drafted by the IMF (by the end of the year) when a discussion on the IMF participation in the programme was expected to begin.

Declan Costello, the European Commission's representative in the institutions, sounded very optimistic over the success of the Greek programme. He said that a second review of the programme would be demanding and full of challenges. He did not specify the timetable of the review but said that prior actions should be voted by December 11 this year.

Costello reassured there was no risk of a haircut in deposits and noted that a discussion on debt relief measures was moving towards reducing annual servicing costs. He said that the presence of IMF in the programme was of crucial importance to Europe.

"A commitment is a commitment and will honor a commitment on primary surplus to gain credibility," George Chouliarakis, deputy Finance Minister told the Economist conference, but noted that the government preferred lower primary surpluses for the period after 2018.

"Our preference is that after 2018 we should have much lower primary surpluses, around 1.5-2.0 pct of GDP in the long-term," Chouliarakis said. He said he expected a second review of the programme to have been completed by the end of October.

Mr. Nicola Giammarioli, Head of Strategy & Institutional Relations at European Stability Mechanism, responding the Greek minister said: "You have taken an commitment to have primary surplus of 3.5 pct of GDP after 2018 as well. Of course, you can negotiate but for the time being this is your commitment".

Addressing an Economist conference, Katseli said the first challenge was restoring confidence in the financial sector, something that will allow the lifting of capital controls and a gradual return of deposits.

The second challenge, Katseli said, was channeling funds to productive business and investment initiatives. The key to that was an efficient management of non-performing loans, mostly business, which will free capital currently held to absorb any damages and their distribution to the fund the real economy and restarting viable business units.

A third challenge was adapting banks to the new requirement imposed by the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the remaining regulatory and supervisory obligations, while the fourth challenge was maintaining competitiveness and regaining profitability in a new digital banking environment. Katseli said banks need to find new sources of revenue by investing in new technologies, IT and innovation, planning and distribution of advanced products and services.

The fifth challenge was upgrading corporate governance and risk management systems.

[02] Lamda Development ready to begin works in Hellinikon

"In the meantime, the consortium is willing to offer any information and help, in asked, in order to get the project started the soonest possible," Athanasiou said, adding that international and Greek companies have drafted surveys covering every aspect of the project: environmental, economic, social, etc, at a cost of more than 10 million euros. He noted that the project will begin with a liquidation of the whole area of 6,200 stremmata (one stremma=1,000 sq.m.) and that in the next six or nine months the area will be ready for reconstruction works, with the first in line creating the largest seaside park in Europe, covering 2,000 stremmata, one of the largest in the world. He stressed that the beginning of works would signal the support of sectors heavily hit by the crisis, such as construction, cement, steel, aluminium, suppliers and transportation.

Athanasiou said that at the same time, works will begin to fully upgrade the seaside area, the marina and construction of five hotels -one seven-star hotel (the only one in Greece) resembling a boat with a capacity of 250 beds, while the other four hotels will have a capacity of at least 2,200 beds. The hotels will operate around the year, creating at least 5,500 new job positions. Lamda Development will also build a landmark building for Greece and Europe, with around 200 apartments. The project also envisaged construction of an aquarium -the biggest one in Europe.

These projects are expected to be delivered in five years, he said. Athanasiou said construction of a shopping mall will create around 4,500 new job positions, another 2,000 for the construction and operation of an international medical center and another 2,500 for the construction of an international university center.

He said that the project will a very low average building rate, less than 0.5 with a less than 30 pct coverage. The contribution of the project will be decisive for the future of Athens and the country as it is expected to attract more than one million tourists.

Athanasiou said the biggest part of the project is expected to be completed in 12 years with the construction of 8,000 homes. He noted that the Greek state will have more than 13.5 billion euros in revenue during the 25-year investment activity of the project.

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