Athens , 30 March 2011

Excerpts from Deputy Foreign Minister Spyros Kouvelis’s 30 March 2011 interview on “Radio 9” with journalists D. Verykios and D. Stavropoulos:

·       “The Foreign Ministry takes every opportunity to stress that Greece is a country that does not have and will never have nuclear facilities, and that is why we are demanding that our neighbours take into account the potential consequences of installing nuclear reactors near Greece.”

·       “Regarding Greek-Russian economic relations, during my April 2010 visit to Moscow, I and my co-chairman on the Economic Cooperation Committee, Russian Transport Minister Levitin, discussed all the bilateral cooperation issues, signed the extension of the DESFA-Gazprom cooperation for moving ahead with providing natural gas in Greece, and now a visit from Mr. Levitin is being scheduled so that we can move ahead on this cooperation.”

·       “The direct air link between Beijing and Athens could mean very positive developments in tourism. The Foreign Ministry has helped in the most effective manner with the process of issuing visas for Chinese nationals so that they can visit our country. Last year, 60 million Chinese tourists left China, but only 10,000 of them came to Greece. This has to change.”

·       “The cooperation plan and agreement we made with India a few days ago looks at a number of synergies in the shipping sector, cooperation in the energy sector, where the Indian’s are seeking know-how and the presence of Greek energy and renewable energy enterprises. They expressed interest in cooperating with Greece on food processing and promotion, because India is a country with great agricultural production but a lack of processing.”

·       “Among the six priorities in Greece’s economic diplomacy that I presented two months ago, there is the promotion of young entrepreneurs, and we have already begun planning for bilateral meetings between young Greek entrepreneurs and their Turkish counterparts, due to both geographical proximity and the broader cooperation that already exists. And we are also planning such meetings with young entrepreneurs from countries farther afield.”