ETVA invests €95 mln in business parks
ETVA VIPE, the entity investing in business and industrial parks that belongs to Piraeus Bank and the Greek state, is launching new investments totaling 95 million euros.
Managing Director Thanos Psathas told a press briefing on Tuesday that the Recovery and Resilience Fund has approved the proposals submitted by ETVA VIPE for the financing of half of the upgrading of 14 industrial areas throughout Greece. These are projects of the order of €50 million, most of which are located in Thessaloniki, where there is 25% of the square-meterage of the shopping centers controlled by the company.
Demand for shopping centers, Psathas explained, is particularly high and therefore the company is seeking to increase the available spaces either through the expansion of existing parks or by creating new facilities. In this direction, the company is evaluating the implementation of an organized area for manufacturing companies in Attica, which will have an area of 5 square kilometers, a budget of €40 million, and may be implemented in Magoula, which is one of the likeliest areas.
Besides Attica, the company is planning the creation of new industrial areas, worth €15 million, at Litochoro in Pieria (70 sq.km.), Xanthi, as well as Volos (5 sq.km.), Farkadona in Thessaly (800,000 sq.m.) and Tripoli, where the expansion of the existing facility is planned. Demand in the latter is particularly high for industrial parks, while Thessaloniki garners the highest demand in all of Greece for the development of organized spaces for industry and manufacturing, because it has an airport, a railway line and a port.
Also, ETVA VIPE is launching the implementation of additional projects (e.g. road construction, water supply and industrial wastewater networks etc) of a total value of €15 million in existing industrial parks.
The lack of organized business parks with the appropriate infrastructure to host manufacturing and industrial companies is one of the obstacles to Greek entrepreneurship. This is because the areas that are also known as hosts of manufacturing activities have been developed unregulated, outside town planning and without infrastructure, causing significant environmental and urban planning effects. The area occupied by this specific category of sites is approximately 300 sq.km., with ETVA controlling 51 sq.km. of organized industrial-manufacturing activity areas.
