Athens News Agency: News in English, 05-09-23

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

CONTENTS

[01] FinMin outlines eurozone opportunities, SE Europe developmental efforts in Washington address

[01] FinMin outlines eurozone opportunities, SE Europe developmental efforts in Washington address

Alogoskoufis noted Greece's strategic geopolitical position, as it was in SE Europe, an emerging region with more than 100 million residents.

Regarding Greece's experience from its particiation in EMU, he said that the monetary stability and low interest rates of the euro had given a boost to private consumption and private investments, thus facilitiating the servicing of the public sector debt.

However, he added, the fact that the preceding government had lacked the will to advance a plan of reforms and rationalise public expenditure had led to disproportionately large fiscal deficits and hurt the competitiveness of the Greek economy, thus limiting the prospective benefits from the country's EMU participation.

The present government, he continued, had a concise goal: to contain the fiscal deficits, render the economy more competitive, and materialise the reforms that have been necessary for years.

Alogoskoufis said the New Democracy (ND) government, from the moment it took over the helm of the country 18 months ago, introduced many reforts in every branch of the economy. The government reformed the taxation system, reducing the corporate tax brackets and simplifying the taxation procedures and making them clear-cut.

The government also introduced a new investments law, inorder to give impetus to regional convergence and encourage investments in sectors where Greece offers comparative advantages, as well as a new law for collaboration between the public and private sector so as to create the necessary infrastuctures that were faster, more efficient, and lower-cost, he said.

The minister stressed that the denationalisations programme, although ambitious, has gone better than initially expected and planned. In fact, the government had budgeted and predicted revenues from denationalisations at 1 percentage point of GDP, approximately 1.9 billion dollars, for this year, and they had already reached 2.5 billion dollars.

The Greek economy was responding very satisfactorily to the government's reform initiatives, the minister said.

He said that despite the high oil prices, the economy's rate of growth remained one of the highest in the Eurozone. Economic growth was expected to reach 3.6 percent this year for Greece.

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