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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.