Download Minister of Tourism Olga Kefalogianni, former Prime Minister of

Minister of Tourism Olga Kefalogianni, former Prime Minister of Sweden, Göran
Persson, president of the Chamber John Saracakis, ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for the invitation and the possibility to address this forum.
Congratulations to an excellent initiative and a very good program. I am really
looking forward to all the speeches and interventions.
As the President of the Chamber said; Different histories have shaped our two
countries. Yet we also have a common history. To mention a few things,
already in 1852 we signed a bilateral treaty on trade and shipping. And our
bilateral trade has continued to grow during the years, but there is certainly a
huge potential to be further explored, and in many areas, as this forum will
show.
During the years many Swedes moved to Greece, and Greeks moved to
Sweden. Still we receive so much appreciation for the fact that we, quite
naturally, showed solidarity during the dictatorship in Greece. It is true that we
over and over again have opened our doors for people seeking protection from
war, internal conflicts and dictatorship. And we continue doing so. But do not
forget how everyone who comes to Sweden also contributes, to the building of
our society, our welfare and our growth. We are grateful for that.
Greece is experiencing a deep crisis and a deep, long recession. But Sweden has
not been free from crises either. In Sweden the 1980s were years of high
inflation and weak currencies. We had gone through several devaluations and
were hit by economic shocks in the early 1990s. We suffered from high interest
rates to protect a fixed exchange rate. We had a banking crisis which was
followed by severe recessions, with falling GDP levels and rapidly rising
unemployment.
Preparing this speech I went through some of the figures and statistics, and
was reminded of the dramatic situation; the budget deficit was at 12 percent of
GDP, the central bank’s interest rate peaked at 500 percent, unemployment
was around 15 percent, and in northern Sweden around 23 percent. Beginning
of the 1990’s our real estate crisis saw the value dropping up till 70-80 percent.
Then we had a total makeover, a policy makeover. Our former Prime Minister
Göran Persson will talk more about this, and about what made it possible for
Sweden to, so to say, make good use of the crises. And I would like to quote
one of President Obama´s former collaborators: “Never let a good crises go to
waste”. We did not, and came out stronger.
Sweden is an export-oriented, free trade nation, and one of the most
competitive, internationalized and globalized economies in the world. I would
say that we have created a large number of world-leading companies, setting
an example and a trend for the new industries.
Sweden is also one of the most innovative countries in the world. A number of
international indexes measure the ability of countries to foster innovation, and
Sweden is usually found at the top. To give you one example, Sweden has the
third most registered number of patents per capita in the world.
Nearly four per cent of Sweden’s GDP goes towards research and development
– one of the highest rates in the world, and the highest among OECD countries.
So we invest heavily in research and we have a good and, that is important, a
well developed collaboration between industry and universities.
Referring to the program today I also would like to mention especially that we
have a long history of environmental awareness and sustainable thinking. We
have developed quite advanced energy and environmental technologies. A
large number of innovative Swedish cleantech firms have gained worldwide
recognition for their approach to solving pressing environmental issues.
A large number of Swedish companies have environmental technologies
solutions in their products and services. The companies do business and
research with renewable energy and sustainable technologies, such as green
build, waste management and recycling, water and wastewater and sustainable
transportation and urban development. I am certain that we have a lot of
solutions that could be of interest for Greece as well.
Let me conclude by mentioning tourism, also on today’s agenda. Every year
hundreds of thousands of Swedes visit Greece. Last year approx. 650 000
swedes visited. But unfortunately we don’t see this number of Greeks in
Sweden. It is time to start changing that.