Χαιρετισμός στη συνάντηση εργασίας με θέμα ‘JOINT TECHNICAL MEETING CROSS BORDER INVESTMENT’,  με την ‘EUROPEANBANK for RECONSTRUCTION and DEVELOPMENT’, στις 19 Νοεμβρίου 2012.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It  is a pleasure to participate in this meeting with the delegates of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development since it gives me a chance to express, (from my position of the General Secretary for Public Works) , my views on projects of great importance for Greece and its neighbors especially the Evros Prefecture which is home to the Evros river basin.

Greece as a founding member of EBRD has invested over the years important sums of money in numerous projects, amongst other , supporting EBRD’s energy and infrastructure development projects as well as the implementation of the Enterprise Growth Program. The value of Greece – EBRD investments stand at3.5 billion EUR.

Additionally EBRD is closely working with Greek Banks in various projects as well as Greek consulting companies awarding 45 contracts in 2011.

The development of this long relationship is valuable as a factor of trust for upcoming projects, critical at this time of economic hardship.

The ministry has pinpointed several projects of importance for us as well as for our neighbors.

The first one is the new road bridge over the Evros river connecting the Egnatia highway to a similar highway on the Turkish side which is underdevelopment. The new bridge is located close to the existing bridge. A project that Turkey wants as well. It will be a bridge with two traffic lanes and an emergency lane on each direction. The existing bridge was built in the fifties( ’50) with one lane on each direction. Probably suitable for the traffic at that time but too small for today’s conditions, where commercial as well passenger traffic has multiplied over these years.

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