Greek gov't to gradually reduce taxation and social insurance contributions, FinMin says
Addressing the 9th Greek Investment Forum, Staikouras said the Greek economy entered 2020 on a healthy basis with promising outlook, but unfortunately the coronavirus pandemic changed all that. Since the beginning of the crisis the government has adopted a comprehensive, realistic and dynamic package of measures to support public health, employment, liquidity and social cohesion, while in the current phase of gradually restarting economic activity it continues to support workers and employers by expanding support measures for employment, strengthening liquidity and implementing focused measures on sectors most affected by the crisis. In the next phase, as recovery starts, there will be opportunities for policies with permanent characteristics, based on fiscal credibility and strengthening economy through the implementation of growth-friendly structural reforms, he said.
Staikouras underlined that a Eurogroup meeting last week praised the Greek goevrnment for its swift and decisive political response to the crisis, based on five events during the previous two weeks: a successful completion of a new 10-year bond, a significantly lower -compared with the Eurozone average- economic recession in the first quarter of 2020, a significantly lower -compared with the Eurozone average- deterioration of economic climate in the country, completion of procedure by one systemic bank of a "Hercules" plan designed to reduce non-performing loans, while bank deposits continue rising and fifth, a successful completion of the sixth assessment report by European institutions.
The Greek Finance ministert reiterated that the total cost of measures to deal with the crisis is estimated at around 24 billion euros and noted that the government supported a European Commisison's plan to set up a Recovery Fund offering subsidies and loans to EU member-states. Greece faced, for several years, a significant investment gap which we must close and towards this goal we place two interlinked goals, Staikoura said. These goals are: how to cover a negative production gap safeguarding public finances and second, how to improve productive capacity to achieve sustainable and without exclusions high growth rates, with high levels of social cohesion and facing demographic challenges.
The FinMin presented the government's plan to achieve this goals: implementing a prudent fiscal policy, a plan to grow assets, promoting a digital transformation of the public sector, continuing a reform program, implementing structural reforms and invest in green economy.
Source: ana-mna