Greece is once again becoming an investment-attractive country. There is growing interest from major international corporations such as Cisco, Volkswagen, Pfizer, SAP, Tesla, eBay and Amazon. About a year ago, they began to offer profitable and promising projects to the Greek public and private sectors. Some of them just discover the country, others increase their presence.
The Greek government is making every effort to attract international investment to Greece. In an attempt to create more comfortable business environment, government is reforming the administrative system, thereby significantly reducing bureaucratic barriers. The policy of maximizing entrepreneurship is expected to increase dramatically the number of investors.
Most of the proposed projects are high-tech. This will increase domestic demand not only for workers, but also for engineers, scientists and IT specialists. In this way it will be possible to stop or at least slow the drain of intellectual human resources.
Cisco
Cisco will soon establish an international center for technology development and education in the digital field in Thessaloniki. The estimated cost of the project is €12 million. The main task of the center is to introduce Cisco’s technical and information solutions in key areas: health care, infrastructure building, organization of life in human settlements, tourism etc.
Due to the convenient geographical location of Greece, Cisco will be able to implement similar projects in the countries of South-Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula.
Volkswagen
Investment in Greece also contributes to the development of the «green» segment of the economy. Together with Volkswagen, the country launched a pilot project on ecological transformation on the island of Astipalea. The auto giant already provided a batch of vehicles and a 3-megawatt solar power plant will be built in 2023. It will partially replace environmentally harmful diesel generators, covering 60% of electricity needs and providing «green» energy to electric vehicles.
At a joint press conference, Greek Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis and Volkswagen President Herbert Diss announced the amount of investment (each side invests 10 million euros) and promised to complete the transformation by 2026. As a result, CO2 emissions will be reduced by 5,000 tonnes.
traction.gr
Amazon
The Amazon CloudFront Edge server was launched in Athens by initiative of the world leader in internet commerce. It became a key link uniting Amazon sites in Southeast Europe in a single network.
The company and the authorized state structures signed a memorandum of cooperation in the fields of digitization, development of information technologies, construction of appropriate infrastructure, etc.
OT.gr Newsroom
Pfizer
At the initiative of the American pharm giant, two international centers were opened in Thessaloniki. One deals with business operations and related services, while the other deals with the development of new digital technologies. Pfizer invested 650 million euro.
With the opening of the Thessaloniki centres, 700 additional jobs were created for highly skilled personnel. Fifty of them would be Greeks with experience abroad willing to share their knowledge and skills with their colleagues.
greekreporter.com
Total investment in Greece in 2021 will be about €1 billion. This rapid development is expected to boost real estate activity and real estate prices.