“The Infrastructure sector is undeniably at the center of the country’s investment and development strategy with tens of billions of euros invested, mainly from the Recovery Fund”. This was emphasized by the President of Ellactor Group G. Mylonoyiannis during his presentation at the Economist conference.
According to him, “investments and new projects will inevitably take into account the general goal of climate neutrality, the protection of the global ecosystem, while serving the need to modernize the country’s transport infrastructure. The goal is to modernize accessibility and upgrade quality life of societies. Undoubtedly, these pursuits would be accelerated if the asymmetric threats of recent years were not in the foreground. I call them asymmetric because until 2020 the appearance of a pandemic threatening the whole of humanity was unthinkable, as well as the declaration of war on European soil. The results of the occurrence of these risks are well known. The dramatic increase in the cost of energy, raw materials and the disorganization of the supply chain, created conditions of economic crisis at a global level.”
As the president of the ELLAKTOR Group stated, “The construction sector has fatally found itself in the eye of the cyclone. The State, financial institutions, companies in the Construction sector and businesses in general are looking for ways to limit the consequences so that the planned projects can be implemented on time and without dramatic deviations from their budgets. But the concern does not stop at what we have already experienced. In a recent study, the Swiss bank UBS predicts that in the near future, in addition to the known need for Decarbonization, two more “D” parameters will be added. It is about Deglobalization and Defense, i.e. deglobalization and increasing funds for equipment. Deglobalization on the one hand slows down the transfer of capital and on the other hand excludes the investment of capital based on the country of origin. There is no doubt that this new reality threatens infrastructure projects which, as is well known, require significant capital for their execution. The increase in defense funds means that resources will be transferred from the rest, the non-defense industry, to the field of armaments. It is perhaps too early to assess the effect on infrastructure projects but it is certain that the €100 billion announced by Germany in defense spending will be missed by the rest of the economy and so will the rest of Europe as such spending increases. In economic life, of course, there are few absolute concepts and it could be said that defense also includes infrastructure projects that will compensate for turnover losses in the non-defense sector of the economy. But this would mean overturning the existing planning for infrastructure projects and delays in the execution of ongoing ones.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that defense spending is useless. On the contrary, I would remind the saying of Vegetius “si vis pacem para bellum”, i.e. ‘if you desire peace prepare for war’ and the Greek Government has done, by common confession, excellently by recently modernizing the arsenal of both the PA and the P.N. I would not like my position to be perceived as an omen of pessimism but as a starting point for reflection on the new data of the global economy”.
Concluding his presentation, Mr. Mylonoyiannis said “I will therefore close with an optimistic message. Our Group, one of the main representatives of the sector, having drawn up a new operational strategy for sustainable development and with allies new, large institutional investment schemes, is ready to respond to this new environment and the opportunities that – despite the objective difficulties – are opening up in front of us in the fields of activity of Infrastructure, Environment and Energy. We hope to actively contribute to the creation of a modern, sustainable and competitive Greece with the constant support of the State and of all the institutional bodies involved”.
Source: Capital
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