Peristeris: Infrastructure and energy autonomy “key” for logistics

The President and CEO of GEK TERNA Group, George Peristeris, outlined the conditions for Greece to go a determination logistics hub, with “green” infrastructure and precocious added value.

Peristeris was addressing the Athens International Investment Summit, connected the topic “Investing successful Innovation and Infrastructure arsenic Drivers of Growth.”

Referring to overseas investments, helium noted: “We person collaborated with some of the largest investors successful Europe and overseas investments are ever welcome. In hard times, foreigners reasonably support their distance. GEK TERNA, however, ne'er stopped investing successful the state adjacent successful the astir hard years. Today, the representation successful Greece is overmuch much optimistic – I would accidental highly positive. Attracting overseas superior is utile and I judge that GEK TERNA is 1 of the companies with which planetary investors will beryllium peculiarly funny successful cooperating.”

In much detail, Peristeris underlined:

The precedence is present shifting to the instauration of an integrated and interconnected supply concatenation system. This is simply a single web of ports, airports, highways and railways. GEK TERNA is 1 of the Greek companies with a proven quality to make ample infrastructure projects.

There is simply a wide concern gap, particularly successful the transport assemblage successful northeastern Greece. First of all, captious sections of the railway web are missing, which are perfectly indispensable to make a coherent web of interconnected ports — Alexandroupolis, Kavala, Thessaloniki — arsenic well arsenic the corridor to the Black Sea.

The country’s largest roadworthy axis connecting Eastern Europe and Turkey with Western Europe — the Egnatia Motorway — is presently poorly maintained. He stressed that the Ministry is making each effort to guarantee that the concessionaire takes implicit and that the Egnatia Motorway is decently maintained. Equally captious are vigor interconnections. It is unthinkable that there will beryllium nary electrical interconnection with the islands of the North Aegean. Furthermore, for reasons much governmental than technical, there are nary sufficient electrical interconnections with Western Europe. At a clip when energy prices successful Greece tin beryllium astir zero during the day, successful Bulgaria and Romania negative, while successful Italy they scope 87 euros/MWh. A implicit energy interconnection would payment some sides – Greece, which has an vigor surplus, and Italy, which would spot prices fall. However, governmental reasons marque it hard to instrumentality these projects.

Institutional and governmental stability is simply a prerequisite so that the advancement of projects is not affected by governmental changes. For example, the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), which costs 13-15 cardinal euros to beryllium implemented connected time, requires a stable argumentation that is not affected by argumentation changes.

Greece’s purpose is not simply to beryllium a transit corridor for goods, but to make added value on the full supply chain. This means processing logistics zones with assembly and processing capabilities, arsenic well arsenic investing successful integer transformation to supply high-value services. A typical illustration is the Commercial Vehicle and Container Tracking System, which is presently being implemented astatine the inaugural of the government. There is still a batch of country for growth: the logistics assemblage presently contributes 6%-9% of GDP, while successful countries such arsenic the Netherlands this fig reaches 10%-12%.

To execute this transition:

• Logistics investments indispensable beryllium aligned with ESG criteria, which are not conscionable a trend oregon idea, but enactment arsenic a existent “safety net”.
• Projects indispensable beryllium accompanied by wide milestones and measurable objectives, so that they are charismatic to investors and utile to society.
• Experience shows that the longer the concession play for greenfield projects, the much affordable the task becomes for the extremity user – a information that is often underestimated successful the nationalist debate.
• Until now, a logistics halfway was simply a spot to store and administer goods. Today, a much sophisticated attack is required: adjacent a pumped storage station acts arsenic an vigor “logistics center”, storing and distributing powerfulness when needed. Proper water absorption and vigor information are cardinal to creating strong, competitory logistics chains.