SE Mediterranean business bodies to form union
Europe’s Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations (UNICE) will help in the setting up of a sister organization in the SE Mediterranean that will promote contacts with the European Union, business leaders from both regions decided yesterday. «The Union of Mediterranean Business Associations will have twelve member countries of the eastern and southern Mediterranean which are not members of the EU, from Turkey to Morocco,» Francois Perigot, UNICE’s honorary president, told the Athens News Agency (ANA) at the end of the 5th Euro-Mediterranean Private Sector Summit in Istanbul. Representatives of the respective Greek and Cypriot organizations who attended the event welcomed the decision. «Cyprus is participating in the Union, which gives businesspeople in the Mediterranean the opportunity to boost their positions and promote prosperity in the area,» Vyron Kranidiotis, deputy chairman of the Cyprus Employers and Industrialists Federation, who headed a large delegation, told ANA. Federation of Greek Industries (SEV) chairman Lefteris Antonakopoulos said, «SEV contributed a great deal to UNICE’s initiatives so that EU members may see the opportunities existing in the Mediterranean.» Turkish Foreign Ministry officials speaking at the summit noted that their country had benefited from the encouraging moves in the framework of a customs union with the EU and urged all other countries in the region to study the Turkish experience. Fifty percent of Turkey’s external trade is with the EU. Stet Hellas’s telecommunications revenues, in contrast, edged up by just 5.6 percent to 504.8 million euros. It also made up the great bulk (96.4 percent) of total revenues in 2001.
