I am Nicolas Bornozis of Capital Link. I would like to welcome you to today's webinar as part of the Capital Link Invest in Greece webinar series, which aim to raise the profile of Greece as a business and investment destination. Today's topic is investing in Greece, opportunities and incentives for international investors. We have with us an excellent panel of government representatives and international investors who have actually invested significantly in Greece and will share their experience from their presence of the investment in Greece. Panayotis Bernitsas, the Managing Partner of Bernitsas Law, is going to moderate the panel discussion and is going to introduce our panelists. Before that, I will turn the floor over in a second to Maira Myrogianni, who is the Secretary General for International Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is also the Chairwoman at Enterprise Greece. Two very quick remarks. The first one, the usual disclaimer that our webinars are always for informational and educational purposes. The second one, that our participants can submit questions through the Q&A button at the bottom of the screen. Their questions will be addressed, if time permits, at the end of the discussion. With this, I'd like to welcome Maira Myrogianni and turn the floor over to her. Thank you, Mr. Bornozis. First of all, let me thank you for the invitation to participate in this webinar. Dear friends, dear participants, we think it's very important to have this kind of initiatives in order to have the chance to discuss with each other, to promote the possibilities and the opportunities Greece has right now, and also to give an example of what's happening in our country. Let me start by saying that, as you said, I'm the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the Chairwoman at Enterprise Greece. This is a reform made, a decision, political decision, made by the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, when he decided in 2019 to bring Enterprise Greece into the auspices under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We understand that this was a part of a greater reform. We understand and we see now that this reform has brought results since Greece is finding itself in a very good position in investments. We had record investments in 2022. In 2024, we expect to have even more investments happening. We had a record of exports in 2022. We have the political stability that was needed and a stable environment. As you know, The Economist has ranked Greece as the country of the year in 2022 and 2023, and also has ranked Greece as the country with the best improving business environment. We're second in the Eurozone in growth, in annual growth. We are also first out of the 34 OECD countries in growth as well. I think there's a very good momentum for Greece to receive more investments. We have a very good environment. We have turned all the crisis that we have lived before into opportunities. We have the reforms in the law about the strategic investments, as I'm sure Dr. Giannopoulos will say later on. We are giving a lot of incentives, but it's also important for us to promote investments in Greece in several fields. What I mean by that is that Greece traditionally is a country with shipping industry, touristic industry, and agricultural, agri-food industry, but also we are promoting our innovation fields. Greece is becoming a hub in transport and in energy also, and also a hub in logistics. There are different fields and sectors with which somebody can invest. We have very good real estate sector that facilitates all the investments. We have done all the work that needed to be done in governmental level in digitalization. We have a lot of, now, things done digitally, so a lot of permits are digitalized and are more easily to go through an investment. We give also tax incentives for several investments. I think it's a very good opportunity to explore. I'm sure that the esteemed colleagues in the panel that are going to talk after, they will elaborate on all these issues. I'm certain that the proceedings of this webinar will be very successful. Let me thank you again for organizing it, because it's very important to inform people and companies, enterprises about the opportunities that are happening in Greece. Thank you very much. I had forgotten to unmute myself. Thank you very much for your kind and very insightful introduction. I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Panayotis Bernitsas, the Managing Partner of Bernitsas Law, who is going to introduce our panelists and moderate the discussion. Yes. Thank you very much. I'm very happy, let's say, to have this panel with so distinguished speakers and in order to examine together the opportunities and incentives for international investors in Greece. Now, after the very detailed, let's say, introduction that Mrs. Maira Myrogianni made, I think that my role with regard to my introductory remarks will be very limited. What I can say is that Greece has outperformed during the last years with regard to foreign investments. Attraction of foreign investments has been in the epicenter of the governmental policy, and this has produced tangible results, and we see it in various sectors of the economy, as Mrs. Myrogianni said. I will not take much longer in, let's say, in the introductory remarks. The distinguished members of our panel are evenly divided between the public and the private sector, I believe it will be very creative to compare and eventually see their views with regard to the various issues that have to be discussed. I will start with Mr. Gregory Dimitriadis, who has, let's say, the gigantic task of managing assets and shares of state-owned companies and at the same time supervising some of the most important organizations of the public sector, including the privatization fund, the HFSF, which is the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, and of course, the notorious ETAD, which is the owner and manager of all real estate assets in Greece. Now this role will be expanded with the newly established Greek sovereign fund, which is going to pass through Parliament within the next two, three weeks. I would like to ask Mr. Dimitriadis to tell us what the major challenges are with regard to this huge role that he has undertaken, and how he sees the management of state assets, and especially state shares of state-owned companies, and to tell us whether there is an increasing trend of foreign investors to invest in those Greek assets. Thank you very much, Notis, for the introduction. Thank you also, Nicolas, for organizing this. I think it's a very good initiative. Notis, you mentioned, yes, Growthfund has a big task. It's part of all the effort of Greece to bring investments in the country. Maira earlier gave us. Gregory, I think, sorry to interrupt, I think you should mute the voice, the loudspeaker, not the microphone. I know. Because we hear an echo. We have an echo. Okay. Well, You still have an echo? Maybe if I change one more setting here. Now, is that better? Well, don't worry. Can you hear me now better? Is it better or not? Still echo. Gregory, is there anybody else close to you who have another computer and maybe we hear you? No. I'm just reaching the microphone. Now it's perfect. Now it's okay? All right. Perfect. Yes. What I was saying, to just repeat without an echo, is that, well, I thank everybody who organized this, especially Nicolas, for Notis, and of course, Notis Bernitsas, who has actually even helped us in the legal aspects of the new fund to be established soon. The question was if there are major challenges in managing state assets, and of course, there are. As we all know, state assets have a specific set of regulations, and this comes with a legal framework which is not as flexible as in the private sector. The whole idea is to actually make these assets, the companies, the subsidiaries that we have, perform like they are actually listed private sector companies. This is what has been the main aim of our strategic plan for the last three years, which is to be active shareholders in the sense that we will be very much on top of what happens in our subsidiaries and intervene as necessary in order to restructure them. We have seen examples of success. We have PPC, the energy company that has been transformed. It was on the verge of bankruptcy three years ago. Now it is expanding even abroad, investing even outside Greece. This is something that can also happen with other state-owned enterprises we have, for example, with our postal services and other ones. The new legal framework will also strengthen our capacity to do so since we will have further flexibilities. This also means that there's going to be opportunities also for international investors because we need strategic partners in the assets we have. It's not an aim that we just have 100% equity in all our subsidiaries. The idea is that we mature them, they grow, and then we can have some partners who will actually help us grow the business and actually the offerings that they have for the citizens. Because most of them, they offer some public work. The other element which is important is that we have to be a responsible investor in the Greek economy. We collect dividends by the companies in our portfolio, as better they perform, we can have more dividends. This is something that we can return to the Greek economy through investments. Under this plan, we are actually now establishing the new fund. We are working with BlackRock in order to set it according to the best-in-class corporate governance and investment practices, and of course, work complementary to whatever else is in the Greek ecosystem. It is RRF, for example. It is Dr. Haris Lambropoulos' work, who has been very successful in running HDBI and transforming even HDBI from what it was before. All this is a part of a coherent effort to make sure that the challenges that state assets can have can actually turn into opportunities that will welcome strategic investors. From what we see is that there is interest. We have seen also for concessions who, Kalamata Airport, for example, has attracted four bids, and they include foreign investors in partnerships with Greek investors. This is also something we have seen in other aspects, like the floating in the stock exchange of the Athens airport, for example. These are all clear indications that there is a very positive momentum for the Greek economy, which I believe that even this forum here that brings Growthfund, HDBI, and Enterprise Greece together, it's something that collectively we have to make the life and the opportunities and the profits of investors as great as possible. This is exactly the whole reform that Maira earlier presented, and I know we are all in full support of that. I also want to thank all the members of the, both Marinos and Haris and Maira for all the cooperation we had. Thank you very much for that. Let me ask now Dr. Marinos Giannopoulos, who is the CEO of Enterprise Greece. Dr. Giannopoulos, you are, in fact, the par excellence ambassador of the Greek government towards foreign investors. You are the one-stop shop, the welcoming office for foreign investors. I wanted to ask you, if you can, let's say, briefly describe the mission, the specific incentives, and the support mechanism that you have at your disposal in order to guide and assist foreign investors who are interested in investing in Greece. First of all, thank you for the question. Thank Mr. Bornozis for giving us the platform for one more time to be able to explain what we do and put to the public the opportunities and the incentives, and present Greece as an investment destination for any potential investors. Really glad that we have a really good panel with, first of all, Gregory and Haris, and of course, Maira, and our three success stories that we're going to hear from later. Enterprise Greece is the official investment trade agency of Greece under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Essentially, our mission is to promote exports and attract investments, promote Greece as an attractive investment destination, lay down why it's an attractive investment destination, support foreign investors throughout their investment projects. Of course, facilitate the trade and export activities for Greek products and services with organizing national pavilions, trade fairs, trade missions that we participate with the Prime Minister, with the support of the other organizations as well. Enhance all the global competitiveness of the Greek businesses, and of course, showcase the brand Greece as a business destination. Going back to the second part of your question, kind of what incentives and support mechanism we have. First of all, you had Gregory and you will hear from Haris as well, some of the major support mechanisms are on offer. I think our work is also to promote them. Even if they weren't here today, we're going to talk about them anyway, because those are where we direct part of our investors to speak to them. The first one is the Investment Incentives Law, which is different aid types, such as special development, R&D subsidies, tax exemptions, leasing subsidies, all of them have been formulated by the government to help businesses invest in Greece. One main thing that we have in Enterprise Greece is the strategic investments, the fast-track law, as we like to call it. Basically, it offers extra incentives for significant investments that take place in Greece. The main three extra incentive you get is the fast track that everything is run through a central secretariat for your license procedures. You have extra financial incentives depending on the category. Of course, you have a dedicated special tool that has better building regulations. Leaving that, we heard Gregory mention the Recovery Resilience Funds. It is something that's been going on for many years now and has been quite successful. We're also talking about the partnership agreements that include significant resources that can get from various EU funds that can help potentially get some more funding into Greece. Access to different investment networks and partnerships. Of course, all the support that we can navigate through the local businesses that we can offer, especially being under the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, being a neutral kind of ground. We can talk to everyone and help support any kind of investment, environment, and conditions. Well, thank you very much for that. We understand, of course, that foreign investors face certain challenges due to the environment, due to the different language, due to the specificities, let's say, of the public sector. We understand that Enterprise Greece and organizations like yours assist them in mitigating the various challenges. Could you please give us some specific examples of what these interventions lead to? Thank you. That's not an easy question to answer, but what I usually say that in a perfect business environment, enterprise visual investment agents like Enterprise Greece wouldn't be needed because everything would run smoothly. That's kind of we act as a one-stop shop, as you mentioned, as an advisor to the business. Always we're talking about the complex regulatory environment that obviously is trying to change and make it better with all the different multiple permits or approvals that you might need for your project. I mean, we've got the legal framework and the uncertainty around it, all the administrative processes that the government is currently trying and smooth and constantly trying to better. That's why we act as an advisor to the government as well by listening to what the investors have to say. Potentially find any gaps on the legal framework to inform the government that, listen, this need to change, maybe there's something that can be done there. Of course, any infrastructure and constraints can be with logistics that, as you heard from Gregory before, Greece is expanding, Greece is upgrading its infrastructure, it's a process. It doesn't happen overnight. Any improvements takes time, of course, any kind of betterment for marinas to airports, to any other big projects will take time to be able to facilitate even more projects around the area. Let's not forget, of course, the economic volatility and the financial stability concerns that any investor might have, especially on the current geopolitical place in Greece around us. It's up to us to inform and reassure the investor that, listen, there's a stable government. It has been shown, we've been a success story. You heard Maira talk about the economy's second year running as a top performance economy. That's part due to the stock market as well. It's increasing. All of that builds kind of what we like to say, the investment environment in Greece, that should reassure the investors to come and invest. Thank you very much. Let me turn myself to Professor Haris Lambropoulos, who's the President of the Hellenic Development Bank of Investments. The Development Bank is a substantial facilitator and co-investor in funds that invest in Greek companies. Of course, it plays a very important role, as Mr. Dimitriadis also said before, in the development of Greece. I would like to ask, what is the role of the Hellenic Development Bank in facilitating, mediating between international investments and, let's say, the Greek environment through the venture capital or the private equity funds where it co-invests? What opportunities there are for those funds that would like to invest in Greece? Okay. Thank you so much, dear Mr. Bernitsas. I would like also from my side to congratulate the organizers of this very important webinar and state that I'm very happy and honored to be coordinated by one of the top legal firms of our country, and especially its Managing Partner, namely Mr. Panayotis Bernitsas. In saying so, I would like to say that Hellenic Development Bank of Investments is the sovereign fund of funds of Greece. We are an NPI, a national public institution. There is also a Hellenic Development Bank, which is a national public bank, offering debt and guarantee instruments. From our side, we co-invest on the equity side, so we are the equity investment instrument of the Hellenic Republic, managing public and European resources and investing on behalf of the Greek state. Gregory said earlier, and Marinos, as well as Maira, Mrs. Myrogianni explained, we are all working collaboratively to add on the development and financing chain of the Greek government and the Greek policies. We are part of this very important chain. As you also implied in your question, we are a sovereign co-investor. Our mandate is to impose governance terms, strict governance terms or our fund management teams that they apply through our calls, open calls. Let me say that this is a significant difference from other peer institutions around Europe. We have open calls. We have currently under management EUR 2.1 billion to procure and invest in newly to be established funds mainly, along with other private investors, and mainly on a pari passu basis, meaning on the same terms with no privileges, as compared to other investors. Although, we offer privileges in some cases to private investors, because we want to demonstrate de-risking of investment and to attract, let's say, smart money to be invested in Greek companies with innovative, extrovert, and growth characteristics. We're talking about growth capital through our portfolio funds. Currently, as Gregory implied earlier, we have revamped the Hellenic Development Bank of Investments during the past 4 years, and from a negligible portfolio of venture capital and private equity funds, we are very happy to say that today, we manage a portfolio of 27 private equity and venture capital funds where we have committed about EUR 700 million from our side, and they have raised about EUR 900 million from their part, meaning that they manage in total one and a half billion EUR and still growing. We are very happy on that. That means that there is an investment appetite for Greece. Also, if I can compare that with the past 20 years, this is twice the public resources invested in such schemes, venture capital and private equity schemes, equity investment schemes, as compared to the past 20 years. That does not mean that we do right our work only, but to the contrary, from my side, I want to demonstrate that there is an investment traction and an investment perspective for Greece, and that's why the foreign investors and the private investors, they do trust our fund managers to invest in the Greek economy, in the Greek companies. Thank you very much for that. May I ask an additional question? You mentioned privileges, and I would like to ask you whether there are specific incentives for investing, let's say, in the Hellenic Development Bank through the VCs or PEs. Yes. Of course, I would like to highlight that there is a regulatory framework which is very advantageous. It is comparable to any other major frameworks. For example, Luxembourg. It is tax transparent or tax neutral, depending on the appetite of the investors. Our calls, as I said earlier, some of them they have a cap on the returns that we expect, and we leave the rest for the private investors. Although most of our FMAs, Fund Management Agreements, are on a pari passu basis, same terms, same conditions, same returns, no privileges for us. We try to facilitate the private investors to invest in the Greek entrepreneurial ecosystem, whether this is on the startup or in the grown-up phase of investments. We have in our portfolio, and we have seen that specialized management teams, both in terms of local knowledge and scientific background. Of course, we have very strong international and pan-European partnerships. I can name, for example, on the international level, our core investment agreement with Mubadala Capital, where we have a co-investment partnership with them. They have already invested in three of our funds with Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding as well, that they have recently announced through one of their portfolio companies, Masdar, the landmark acquisition of Terna Energy, where we acted as facilitators. We have not invested, but we facilitated, to the largest extent, the successful completion of this fund. On a pan-European level, we collaborate with all our major peers like Bpifrance, KfW Capital, Tesi from Finland, EIFO from Denmark, CDP from Italy, and personally, I have the honor to be elected and participating in the board of directors of the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund. We have a global European, let's say, overview of what is happening in Greece, and we are eager to welcome the new sovereign fund instrument of the Growthfund and collaborate with Gregory and his team. Excellent. That is very, very encouraging and very, very good news. Congratulations for the good work. Now let us see how the market perceives those opportunities. I will start with Mr. George Nikolaou, Head of Chubb Business Services EMEA, who's responsible for the launch of a new technology services center in Thessaloniki, Greece in early 2023 to deliver innovative technologies that enhance the customer experience, increase efficiency, and accelerate the company's digital transformation. Chubb's investment, of course, gives us a lot of optimism about Greece's active role in the brave new world that is under formation. I would like to ask you whether this journey to implementation was smooth or rather bumpy in the first place, Mr. Nikolaou. Thank you, Mr. Bernitsas, for the question, and thank you, Mr. Bornozis, for the invitation to discuss such a critical topic for the Greek economy. The ride has been smooth and bumpy at the same time. First of all, who is Chubb? Chubb, we're a world leader in insurance, operating in 54 countries and territories. Our stock is traded in the New York Stock Exchange as part of the S&P 500 index. In Greece, we established an engineering center, a hub, to serve the digital technology needs of this 40,000 people organization. We were able to find great professionals, great human resources, that were quickly integrated into our global organization and became productive very quickly. We currently employ over 250 people, aiming to reach 500, and we only started less than two years ago. At the same time, acknowledging that so far it's been a successful ride, we do have strong headwinds. We lack public infrastructure in Thessaloniki. We lack real estate solutions for our office needs. We have steep startup costs, establishing a new operation in a new country. We even lack certain critical skills in hiring the people we want. It's been smooth and bumpy at the same time, and the good news is that we're here, we're making good progress. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten much support from anywhere other than ourselves. Okay. That's very good to hear. My experience from Thessaloniki, despite the fact that there were complaints that it becomes a provincial city, is that it is a vibrant city and that it becomes a hub for new technologies, with a lot of young people and the universities there. When in Thessaloniki, you feel how vibrant the city is and how much energy there is, which is a very good omen for the future. Sometimes when we speak about Greece, some people think it's only Athens or the Athens area or the Attica area. I would like to ask you another question, which is, you said you didn't have much help apart from what you managed to do on your own. What do you think? What advice would you give, let's say, to the public authorities, and what sort of support would you like the Greek government to give to investors who are interested in investing in this country in order to enhance, let's say, their investments in Greece? You're absolutely right. Thessaloniki is a great place. It's vibrant. It's got all the qualities you said. It's got universities, and that's a big part of our decision. Also the fact that the Pfizer CEO, who is from Thessaloniki, such an ambassador and advocate, definitely influenced our decision, and because they went there first, and they established their own center. There are challenges. Like I said, the city is lacking infrastructure. There are skill requirements that we cannot satisfy, even though there's a great workforce. What we need in such an environment, we want to avoid sending jobs to India or Mexico or Spain, where we also have operations. If we had the incentives or the development law, for example, that is in effect, but it's not available to us, to help some of the onboarding of people who may not have all the necessary skills, but we could train them. That would amortize this startup cost and help us hire people faster and, like I said, grow the people in Thessaloniki as opposed to send those roles elsewhere. This is one example. Also being able to bring non-EU citizens, not in large numbers, but enough to seed the capabilities that we need to develop so that we can hire even more Greek nationals or locals because of the expertise that they get from those experienced hires that we bring from outside. Even things like approving a simple visa for a visit, which often gets denied would be great ways that we could help. Those are some of the examples. I think that the message is incentives for training of, let's say, young people and also easing the terms and conditions for working visas and for being, let's say, in a position to work in Greece. Exactly. Yeah. Great two great things to get. Thank you very much. We wish you a lot of success in all your ventures. Let me now turn myself to Mr. Michalis Kassimiotis, who is the Managing Director for Greece and Cyprus of the technological giant Hewlett Packard, which announced in 2023 that a new global center of excellence for open source technology and AI is established in Athens to develop talent for machine learning. May I dare to ask, because this is the question for all multinational companies, you go through the various investment committees, what are the advantages of investing in Greece? Because I understand there were other candidate countries as well, which might have offered even, let's say, larger incentives. What is the basic reason why you invested in Greece? Which, of course, we welcome because it is a great advantage for having a company like yours invest in Greece in the artificial intelligence sector. This, of course, will attract other companies as well. Thank you, Mr. Bernitsas, Mr. Bornozis, for having me. Thank you for the question. Before I answer the questions, just in a few seconds, allow me to first, let's say, place the company to what we do as a company in the frame of your questions. As a company, we are focused in, let's say, advancing the way people live and work, and we do this by providing technology that act on the edge where people, let's say, experience things as professionals in their social lives. We are talking about the intelligent edge. Then we have somehow, let's say, to take advantage of all the processing of the data created. We are focused on the hybrid cloud. At the end, the most important is how we use all this data generated in order to, let's say, put the technology at work for the people and for the enterprises. Having this in mind, indeed, we announced last year, a hub, or I would say it's more, let's say, an R&D extension of our labs, similar to the ones existing already in the U.S. and in India, specialized and focused on data analytics and machine learning, which are integral part of the AI discussion. Everybody's trying to take advantage of AI. Why in Greece? The answer is coming, let's say through several factors, which I will try, let's say, to summarize in the most important ones. Since here we are talking about a talent-centric investment, it is obvious that I will start with the most important one, which is the talent that exists in Greece. Young people coming out from the universities, opposite to George, as I mentioned, this is true that we are missing, let's say people in scale, but for us, quality was more important than scale because we are talking about population of about 30 people that generate technology in Greece, which then becomes, let's say, is integrated in the worldwide portfolio of HP and is exported all over the world. For us, the quality was number one and the quality of the Greek talent when it comes to AI and all these current trends is really good. If I have time, I will explain how this is approved. Talent is there. The next question is how you attract talent, how you maintain the talent in Greece. Another factor is that during the last years, the collaboration, let's say opportunity has increased in Greece. We observe that we have increased collaboration between private sector companies and local universities, research institutions, and the government. Access to academic and research resources is critical for the establishment of such R&D departments. It was already heard, cost attractiveness. In Greece and in our case, in our example, we're moving somewhere between U.S. cost and India cost. We are not, let's say, that expensive like in the U.S. We are not that, let's say, cost-effective in India. We're trying to balance the quality versus the cost, and I believe that in Greece we are sitting in a very good balanced point. Strategic location. I believe that Greece, in order to attract young talents, has to offer, let's say, possibilities to young people. The location of Greece, the geographical location of Greece is ideal, because it is in the cross, let's say, point of three continents, and, let's say with easy access to emerging or mature markets. We have, let's say, other factors like the government support. Mr. Giannopoulos already touched this at this point. I believe that for someone really interesting to take advantage of all this, there is a good framework which may help, let's say in our case, for example, to lower the cost and become more cost-effective. Infrastructure. I know that still there are some, let's say, issues, but as a country in general, we offer what is required. Modern networks, and let's say robust IT infrastructure and facilities that are crucial for the successful operation of such a center of excellence. At least here in our case, in our location, we have not experienced any, let's say, drawback coming from this level as well. I believe that, and I will stop right here because there are other factors, but I think that these are the most important ones. We may have the opportunity to elaborate in any of these areas. Excellent. Thank you very much. This is very encouraging. Last but not least, Mr. Paul Gomopoulos, Senior Managing Director of Hines Greece. He established and developed the Hines platform in a challenging and promising market environment. Hines being a global real estate investment manager, the expectation would be that Hines' breakthrough was rather easy in the Greek market. Is this true, Mr. Gomopoulos? I would say both yes and no. We invested and first came to the market in the very difficult years of 2014, 2015, with a very different macro situation. For sure, I would not describe it as easy. On the other hand, we are one of the largest real estate companies in the world. We're in 30 different countries, which span obviously the U.S., where we're headquartered, but also more exotic countries like China, Brazil. There was experience in difficult situations. That did make it a little bit easier. Also, as a firm, we are able to invest in all the real estate sectors, so spanning office, retail, hospitality. That flexibility also made it a little bit easier to break through. We are also an investor and developer, so again, able to look at opportunities either buying existing Or developing ground up. We have some good tools in our toolkit to break through, but I definitely wouldn't say it's easy. It was easy, but 10 years on, we now have 30 people in the Hines Greece office and a portfolio of around $1.5 billion. It was a good decision, even if difficult. Probably I would say that real estate nowhere is easy. There's definitely challenges, but we see challenges in mature markets as well. I would say that, I think Greece now is a market with the same sort of real estate challenges you see elsewhere, which makes it important to be on the ground. It's always a local business. It's important to be on the ground or have good local partners. In the 10 years that you've been active in Greece or looking into the market, have you seen major changes? Is it easier now to invest in Greece than it was back in 2015, for instance, as you said? Night and day. It is really night and day, and especially from the 2015 period, the country is completely transformed. It's far from perfect, but it is a very different country. I think in the introductions, Maira mentioned Greece being The Economist's Country of the Year 2 years running. That was unimaginable 10 years ago. Greece is borrowing cheaper than the U.S. or Italy. Greek banks are healthy and lending. These now we sort of take for granted, but it was not there 10 years ago. GDP growing, we see all the indicators positive. Indeed, very night and day from five, six years ago. Of course, we're very glad to hear that. May I ask you a question? Because there is a general perception, especially in more mature markets, that, let's say, the real estate sector is close to becoming a bubble, which sometimes affects the valuation of Greek companies, especially the ones that are Greek companies that are listed on the Athens Stock Exchange. Our feeling is that this is not the case, and there is still a long way to go until we become, let's say, a mature market and close to a bubble. Do you agree with this, or what is your view in that respect? I'll only speak for real estate, so I'll stay within my sphere. I think within real estate, we see Greece as going through the usual stages of maturity. If you look back, let's say more than 10 years ago, real estate was very domestic game with domestic players. The stage 1 of transformation was opening up to having international players investing and participating. The next transition which has taken place is having institutional investors in the market, in the real estate market, which tend to be opportunistic. The next phase in this evolution is a transition from where you have institutional players which are less opportunistic and more value add, so a little bit lower risk appetite and lower risk, lower return expectations. I think Greece real estate is in that transformation, and there's still a long way to go because there's the whole other transformation or phase where you eventually attract institutional core investors. There is still a way to go to converge to European averages. To your question on bubbles, within real estate and with the help of interest rates, I think the bubbles have already burst in other European countries. Values have already dropped, which is very different from the situation in Greece. Greece is on a very different part of the cycle. However, we're not immune. I think there is an indirect effect, which is that because markets such as Germany or France or the U.K. have seen a decrease in prices, it's actually they are looking historically attractive. What that's done is it's slowed this momentum of investors coming to Greece because now temporarily, they see opportunities in other countries at good pricing. However, we see that as a good thing because we see it as a buying opportunity in Greece. For the time being, we have a little bit more runway to keep buying before competition keeps pushing prices in Greece upwards as part of this converging to European averages. Plenty of challenges to keep aware of. Like I said, real estate, it's never easy. In Greece, we're very optimistic, and we see plenty of growth ahead in more or less all sectors of real estate. Thank you very much. This is very encouraging. I think we've come to the end of, let's say, these questions. If there are questions that, for instance, the private investors would like to raise to the officials of the state organizations that we have five minutes more, that would be welcome. If not, I would like to thank you very much, all of you, and wish that these very, let's say, good omens that we have and also the very good results that have been achieved by the government continue for a long time. Thank you. Nico? Any questions that anybody would like to ask? If there are none, we will conclude, and I will simply thank you also from my end. I think it's been a very interesting exchange of experiences, challenges, and opportunities, and I think we can all conclude on a very positive note that the opportunities are many, many more than the challenges. Thank you, Nico, for organizing that. I would like to thank you for participating, and to remind you please to book your tickets for New York for December 9. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Keep up the good work. Thank you so much. Thank you, Panayotis. Thank you, Niki. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.