Mitsotakis: Growth may prove even higher than 5.9% for 2021
The Greek economy’s growth rate reached 16.2% in the second quarter of 2021 and a forecast of 5.9% for the entire year may be an underestimation, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Bloomberg in an interview in New York, where he had been attending the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Mitsotakis said that foreign investment interest remained high too.
In the interview, the Greek leader touched on several issues, including the climate crisis, energy costs, and relations with Turkey.
He spoke about Greece’s plans to manage the climate crisis, which had hit the Mediterranean basin hard this summer, with the aid of European Union recovery funds and foresaw that electricity bills would not rise very high in the next three to six months, while efforts were being made at the Greek and EU level to absorb the repercussions of a global rise in costs.
The government will support households and has asked power companies to absorb some of the cost, while it has also proposed that the EU assume a Europe-wide solution.
Mitsotakis noted that Greece has had a very good tourism season in 2021, with better-than-expected results, something which was aided by an EU vaccination certificate facilitating travel between countries.
He also predicted that 2022 would be a very good year for Greek tourism.
