Abu Dhabi: Greece is hoping to expand its collaboration with the UAE in the development of various projects, the chair of the National Bank of Greece said on Monday.
“The UAE already has bids for the development of [a] large real estate project and an airport project,” Louka T Katseli told Gulf News on the sidelines of Global Agenda Summit in Abu Dhabi. “We hope these investments can go ahead. The bid has not been concluded yet.”
She said the Greek government is focusing on investments to boost the economy.
“The challenge is clear for the Greek economy. We need to promote investment, which has dropped by 12 per cent, [especially] in [the] trade and export sector and restructure the productive base so that there can be jobs in the country.”
On Greece’s financial crisis, she said there was a lot to learn from the experience, adding that severe austerity measures can be counter-productive both on economic, political and social grounds.
“We have to be extremely careful on how... we design consolidation programmes. They should be fair [and should] provide [an] adequate social protection network to make sure that growth can continue and we are not plunged into [a] deep recession that we cannot get out [of]. Policy makers have a lot to learn from the Greece experience,” she said.
To avoid a repeat of the financial crisis, Katseli said markets need to be regulated effectively, adding that tax loopholes should be corrected.
“I think we need to do much more at the global level [to avoid] repeating [the] financial crisis. We’ve had series of financial crises, [especially] after capital markets were liberalised. The financial crisis would be inevitable if we don’t make sure that there are no huge macro-economic imbalances like some countries [running up] very high surpluses [while] others have large deficits.
“We also need to regulate financial markets effectively and correct some of the big tax loopholes that exist on tax havens that provide an opportunity for some people to shelter from tax and create fiscal imbalances in specific economies,” Katseli said.
