Piraeus Bank chairman: Greek GDP growth above 8% in 2021; roughly 4% in 2022

The president of Greece’s banking association, George Handjinicolaou, on Thursday called on the Greek state to quickly react in order to fully absorb all guaranteed EU funding available to the local economy via the recovery and resilience fund.

Handjinicolaou, who is also the chairman of ATHEX-listed Piraeus Bank, one of Greece’s four systemic lenders, spoke at an online conference hosted by the Athens-based think tank IOBE.

To achieve this, he said, state services’ management capacity must be boosted, especially of entities linked with the implementation of programs and initiatives bankrolled by the recovery fund.

The Mitsotakis government’s plan, Greece 2.0, was among the first submitted and approved by the Commission.

“It’s necessary for regulatory obstacles to be overcome, along with bureaucracy and administrative obstacles, so a new modern, transparent and flexible framework emerges,” he said.

Referring to now closely watched predictions for Greek economic recovery, he cited a combination of favorable macro-economic prospects, forecasting above 8 percent GDP growth for 2021 and roughly 4 percent for 2022. He also estimated that some 32 billion euros in EU recovery funding will flow into Greek state coffers.