The National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0″…
The Recovery Fund provided by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0” and the tools it offers for utilization by the companies of the Recovery Fund (subsidies and loans) were presented tonight in Alexandroupoli by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Theodoros Skylakakis.
Mr. Skylakakis reviewed the changes made in the economy and the investment incentives offered, noting the reduction of product taxation, insurance contributions and ENFIA. “…We changed the insurance contributions of freelancers and self-employed people who were literally being strangled by insurance legislation. Fortune didn’t expect, and neither did we, that the GDP in a year when we lost six billion to exogenous inflation, would No one expected that after the huge spending we did in the pandemic, we would have less debt this year than the ΄18. In 2018 we had 186% debt, this year we fall to 169% and next year we go to 159%. country internationally”, he said characteristically.
He clarified that the Business Recovery Fund basically has two types of tools: subsidies and loans. He noted that until the beginning of the new year, he will open applications for “Excoonamo”, a very important, as he said, tool for small and medium-sized businesses, the companies he invited to take advantage of it, saying that “it is a tool that no one needs to have business banking profile and I believe that there is not a single business that cannot make energy saving investments with today’s situation and today’s energy costs.”
He also referred to REPowerEU, which will be added from the middle of next year to the digital transformation that is still accepting participations, the investment tools that will come out for tourism, as well as smart manufacturing, investments in the agri-food sector and in the pharmaceutical sector “which we have many investment plans. In total, the investment plans that have been submitted to the Recovery Fund so far, together with the loans that have a large volume, exceed ten billion euros…”.
Describing the lending process that will be open until ΄26, he said that 20% of the investment is equity, 30% is a commercial loan and up to 50% is covered by the Recovery Fund. He stated that we are currently at 8.5-9 billion. euro investment plans, that too many investment plans have been submitted by large companies and 2 billion. investment projects from small and medium and a huge investment volume of 30 billion can be covered. He also referred to a second tool for small and medium enterprises, which within the first quarter of ’23 – gives an amount of 2.5 billion. “which can be used in parallel, or alternatively, or in any way that businesses wish”.
He emphasized the speed of the lending procedures, duration of 2.5-3 months after submitting the request on the specially designed electronic platform, he clarified that in the whole process there is no involvement of the state and that “the loan tool can be combined with the financial another”. tool”.
Finally, the Deputy Minister of Finance made a special mention of the city of Alexandroupolis, expressing his appreciation that there is a very big change, as “after the war in Ukraine, the region entered the world map due to a geopolitical change. It became a crossroads… “. An energy, transit crossroads, which, as “in the next inter-ministerial meeting in December will be included in the PPP for the renovation of the railway from Thessaloniki to the border, it also becomes a geopolitical crossroads…”.
According to Mr. Skylakakis, the ongoing and ongoing changes are a unique opportunity to attract large international investments. Something is changing in the region, something important, he pointed out: “…Our job as a government is to create with the port and other infrastructures, the dynamics that confirm that something is changing here a lot. it will be of great value if they also respond to the investment tools and invest in the future of the region, because the future of the region is really opening up in a way that we didn’t even think about in the last 50 years. to make use of it”.
It is noted that Alexandroupoli is the eleventh city in which the event for “Opportunities and Prospects of Greece 2.0” was held, a joint organization of the Hellenic Chamber of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance and the Special Service for the Coordination of the Recovery Fund and central speakers of the Deputy Ministers of Finance, Skylakakis and the president of OEE, Costas Kollias.