Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis jumped at the chance during a visit to the United States to keep wooing foreign investors as he pushes a slow recovery from a nearly decade-long economic and austerity crisis.
The New Democracy leader invited American business leaders to put their money in Greece as he spoke to US Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a dinner in his honor at the State Department, said Kathimerini.
“The Greek economy will grow from strength to strength. And we invite American investors to take part in this new chapter for our country,” he said, adding he’s taking a page from US policy by cutting taxes, including the corporate rate that was raised to 29 percent by the former ruling anti-business Radical Left SYRIZA.
“We are now ready to write a new chapter in our history. And as we enter the third decade of the 21st Century, I’m sure this is going to be a decade of prosperity and of great success for my country,” he said, although there’s not yet been a full return to markets.
Three international bailouts of 326 billion euros ($362.37 billion) ended on Aug. 20, 2019 and while Greece has floated several bonds and just sold a Treasury bill for 487.5 million euros ($544.4 million) at negative yields, foreign investors still aren’t fully on board.
Mitsotakis met with 22 representatives of companies and investors in Washington to present developments in the Greek economy, reforms implemented by the government, the tax cuts, the government’s privatization plan and other major projects being planned.
Investors asked him about prospects in energy, infrastructure (including ports), tourism, the property market, the financial system and new technologies, and emphasized the importance of political stability, the paper said.
They also wanted to know how stable the tax administration is given the country’s reputation for changing rates, with the investors also keen to make sure there would be stability for their companies and executives and wanted assurances investments wouldn’t be held up by the notoriously slow and inefficient bureaucracy.
The major rating agencies are all scheduled to review Greece’s sovereign status later this year, starting in late January with the government promising to lift the country to investment-grade status by 2021 by the latest.
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