Privatization

As Greece prepares to welcome the highest number of foreign visitors in its history this year, around 35 million according to expert estimates, basic public infrastructure remains woefully inadequate.

Deputy Transport and Infrastructure Minister Nikos Tachiaos stressed the need to redefine the framework of public-private partnerships (PPP), given the ambitious fiscal goals that the country must achieve, in an interview to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Saturday.

Greek-American expatriate billionaire businessman and investor Dean Metropoulos is expected to acquire a 44-hectare property in Kassiopi on Corfu that formed the first privatization conducted as a result of the Greek debt crisis.

It is understood that a sale price of €32 million has been agreed and that bank financing for the project is pending.

Greece's bank bailout fund (HFSF) on Wednesday set the price for the sale of its 27% holding in Piraeus Bank at 4 euros per share, valuing the stake at €1.35 billion.

The sale, part of a wider re-privatization of Greek banks bailed out during the debt crisis, attracted strong demand and was more than eight times oversubscribed, a source told Reuters.

Acropolis guards on a 24-hour warning strike on Tuesday to protest the Culture Ministry's decision to privatize ticket issuance and entry control services through a bidding process. The protesters deemed it a "transfer of public funds to private entities." 

The government does not mull adding new assets to the privatization portfolio, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

The government plans to make total funding of 1.5 billion euros available over the coming years as part of its goal to reactivate social housing.

The tender for the new 25-year concession of Attki Odos attracted record-level financial offers, but the highest binding financial offer among the six candidates that participated in the process was submitted by GEK Terna.

Privatization agency Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED) will publish the six competitive bids for the new concession of the Attiki Odos ring road linking the capital to its airport before September 9. It will then call on the highest bidder and those whose bids are up to 5% less than the highest to resubmit.

She added that the opposition is against this law only because it was brought by Aleksandar Vui and the Serbian Progressive Party.