E. Mytilineos: I am optimistic about Greece, we are not leaving the country

The president and managing director of Mytilineos, Evangelos Mytilineos, expressed his optimism for the course of the country in the coming years, speaking at the Circle of Ideas conference.

We have a unique political opportunity, for as many years as I can remember. We have unique political stability, a prime minister who absolutely controls the state, the government and the party and has the ability to take any political cost he wants to make reforms. If we don’t do it now, I don’t know when that opportunity will come again. Now is the time, serious and painful reforms must be made in 12 to 18 months. Because in the second two years things start to get more difficult, opinion polls play more of a role than policy making,” said Mr. Mytilineos.

In response to a question about the possibility of the company leaving the country, Mr. Mytilineos emphasized that “nobody is leaving Greece, nor are we going to take ten factories on our backs and leave” and added: “This is one thing and the dual listing is another, ( that is, entering another stock exchange abroad at the same time). The State and the market should be happy when companies based in Greece can grow and prosper. It is not something that should be misunderstood”.

Referring, moreover, to international developments, he underlined that:

– If the inflation target in the EU were increased from 2% to 3%, many problems would automatically be solved. 2% is a noose around the neck.

– Bulgaria’s imposition of a tax on natural gas transiting through its territory shows the lack of a common economic and energy policy. The way Bulgaria is acting is clearly criminal.

– Europe is behind the US and instead of taking steps forward it is going backwards. He raised the flag of the green transition but Germany is opening one carbon plant after another because the scenario of having cheap Russian gas for 100 years did not “work out”.

– After many years we see a shift in the center of gravity of economic policy from the private economy back to the states.

– The markets believe that the Russian-Ukrainian front will “freeze” for some time, at least for the next winter and that in Israel the most likely scenario is in the direction of limiting the crisis to the Israel-Gaza borders and less in Lebanon and Syria. That’s why both stocks and bonds hold up.