Small and
medium sized enterprises in Greece, including many operating in the
costal tourism sector, have been hit hard by the economic crisis. They
face many challenges that require adapting to new ways of doing
business, accessing markets and funding. Tourism, as the "heavy
industry" of Greece and maritime and coastal tourism and blue growth,
represents a unique opportunity to re-ignite Greece's SME's and its path
to growth and competitiveness. To explore the tourism sector's
potential to create growth and new jobs, today in Athens European
Commissioner European Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Maria Damanaki, the Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras and the Greek Minister of Tourism Olga Kefalogianni will open a High Level conference on Maritime and Coastal Tourism. Tomorrow a Commission led "Mission for growth"
will also bring representatives of about 145 European companies to
Greece, to participate in bilateral meetings with 330 SMEs from across
Greece with the aim to form new partnerships and discuss opportunities
for collaboration.
Maritime and Coastal Tourism
Coastal and maritime tourism is
one of the key drivers for creating growth and new jobs in Europe, and
in particular in our coastal areas which often suffer from high
unemployment. Coastal and maritime tourism is a pillar of the
overarching "Blue Growth" strategy and has a potential to create growth
and new jobs, particularly in areas with high unemployment. It is the
largest maritime economic activity and the main economic driver in many
coastal regions. It employs almost 3.2 million people, generating a
total of € 183 billion in gross value added and representing over one
third of the maritime economy. As the largest maritime economic activity
and the economic backbone of many of our coastal regions the Commission
seeks to help this sector develop and prosper.
The Commission has just
presented a new strategy to enhance coastal and maritime tourism in
Europe. It proposes 14 Actions to enable coastal regions and business to
tackle the challenges and make a quantum leap in order to exploit
opportunities for growth and jobs sustainably. The new strategy also
calls on industry stakeholders, Regions and Member States to take up the
challenges and complement the EU actions.
Conference: Europe 2020 Strategy for growth
SMEs are important as they
provide 85% of all new jobs. An essential element to help SMEs to grow
is the formation of business partnerships and networks. Recent efforts implemented
by the Greek government are starting to have positive effects on
enterprises and as a consequence on the overall conditions of the
economy. To further help SMEs in Greece emerge from the downturn and
participate in the new upcoming economic growth cycle, and as part of
the Europe 2020 Strategy for growth
representatives from SMEs and also the European Commission's Directorate
General for Enterprise and industry are also travelling to Athens.
Central to this visit, will be the business to business networking event
which will take place on 11 March. The aim of the event is to promote
business partnerships between Greek and other EU companies, but also
with other non-European countries in sectors identified as key
contributors to achieving growth in the country: tourism, agri-food,
food processing, aquaculture, biotechnology and blue biotechnology,
energy and ICT.
Towards a more favourable business environment...
The Greek business environment
has undergone major changes during the last four years. Government
reforms resulted in reduction of the cost and the time to start-up an
enterprise. Steps for licencing procedures have been reduced from 24 to
7. Structural reforms have been introduced to reduce administrative
burden for SMEs and reduce relevant costs. New tools have been
introduced to provide access to funding for companies that in the recent
past faced major cash problems due to liquidity shortage, taxation
reforms and the banking sector re-capitalisation.
In response, the Commission introduced COSME,
a new € 2.3 billion program for SMEs which aims to address the main
challenges they are currently facing, such as access to financing,
access to foreign markets, improvement of the business environment and
support to entrepreneurs. Among other things, this program will help EU
enterprises, including the ones in Greece, deal with the current credit
crunch by enabling them to receive more than 22 billion euros in
secured loans over the next seven years (IP/13/1135).
Funding opportunities have also
recently arisen out of the new Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme. For example, a new "SME Instrument" (with the help of the
Enterprise Europe Network) will support innovative SMEs, during an
entire innovation cycle: from the conception of the innovative idea, to
the final creation of the new product or service. Companies will then
have the responsibility to commercialize their innovations using
existing mechanisms of access to finance.
Main economic sectors in Greece
The service sector is the
primary sector in the Greek economy and tourism is one of the main
sectors both in terms of economic growth and employment. In 2011
tourism and travel represented 18.4% of total employment and 16.5% of
the GDP.1
Greece also features strong specialisation in the food processing
industry. Other important sectors are metal, chemicals, cement and
textile. The Greek merchant fleet is the largest in the world. Greek
ship owners control 15% of the world’s shipping capacity. The aim is to
improve competitiveness and change the economy’s structure in favour of
an investment- and export-led growth model.
WTTC Travel and Tourism economic Impact 2012
