Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Here It Comes --- A National Economic Growth Plan for Greece!

Well, here is a piece of good news! Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis announced that the time is ripe for national economic growth plan for Greece. He said that "efforts should focus on making the economy export-oriented and making Greece attractive to foreign investors, stressing that 'the economy can no longer be consumption-driven'”.

It's now over 3 years since I wrote my first (hopefully passionate) plea for a Long Term Economic Development Plan for the Greek economy. I argued that in any financial crisis, first should come the turn-around plan and only then can the suitable financing package be structured around it. In the case of Greece it was different: Greece and the EU spent 4 years dealing with the financing and now, at long last, the planning is to begin. Well, better late than never.

Mr. Hardouvelis won't have to start from scatch. He could, for example, dust off the "Greece Ten Years Ahead" plan which McKinsey published in 2011. He could look up a couple of other plans which have been proposed by various organizations (including the EU Task Force for Greece). Or, he could look through drawers in his own office: I understand that the Greek government had, back in 2007, put together - with the help of think tanks - a comprehensive development plan for the Greek economy (which some people have suggested was then the basis for McKinsey's plan; in fact, some people have commented that McKinsey only copied what Greece had put together before).

So, I guess the challenge will not be to put together a plan. Instead, the challenge will be to really get down to doing it and, more importantly, to implementing it. If this is what's going to happen now, it can only be considered as outstanding news!

3 comments:

  1. Yet another Greek doing what they do best, talking. Should a plan ever materialize it will be a plan for what Europe shall do for Greece.
    Lennard

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  2. The national economic plan is a matter of all political parties, bussiness elites, professional organitations, individuals and foreigners to bring their experience. All in Greece need to talk under a specific and honest agenda, it's not a matter of a single person, whatever it's name is.

    MS

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  3. About Greek planning, a melancholic word for the weekend.
    In Greece "there is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again". Eugene O'Neill.
    Lennard

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