PRODUCT MARKETS AND COMPETITIVENESS. The authorities continue working towards improving economic framework conditions and boosting competitiveness, despite the shifting priorities and difficulties faced due to the Coronavirus outbreak. This will be crucial in order to ensure that the Greek economy exits from the current situation on a strong footing and will be able to generate a strong and sustainable recovery, inter alia, by reducing the reliance on tourism and finding new sources of growth. Inevitably and appropriately, significant resources have been diverted towards addressing the pandemic. On the digital front, priority was attached to the setting up of remote working systems and electronic transaction applications. The immediate attention of economic diplomacy actors focused on ensuring adequacy of imports of medical supplies and medicine, and providing information to affected businesses. Further, staffing constraints and the reduced parliamentary activity implied slowed-down progress on areas dependent on the outputs of inter-ministerial working groups or the adoption of legislation, such as the simplification of licensing legislation. Nonetheless, the authorities remain poised to advance improvements in these areas, and committed to undertake a number of complementary actions. Moreover, they committed to adopt a new public procurement strategy for 2021‑2025 by end-2020. A well‑functioning public procurement framework would help guarantee a competitive business environment, with positive spillovers on the digital reform agenda, and will thus be crucial for the recovery (see section 3.5). The authorities have progressed with the implementation of an impressive set of digital initiatives in a limited amount of time, enabling, among others, continuity in certain business-state transactions. Key initiatives included the early launch of a pilot for more than 500 electronic services offered through the xxx.xx unified platform, and the provision of remote access to critical government services. Further, the authorities swiftly set up a digital platform to manage the submission of applications for financial assistance to businesses to combat the effects of the pandemic. In parallel, work on improving the digital performance of the economy as a whole continues, which is expected to contribute to boosting productivity in the private sector. Moreover, the authorities have committed to delivering a number of complementary actions by end-2021 to further ease the administrative burden, amongst othe...
PRODUCT MARKETS AND COMPETITIVENESS. Competitiveness and export performance have improved over the last years in response to broad-based structural reforms, but the projected deterioration in net exports calls for a stronger focus on boosting productivity and attracting investment. Export levels, in part aided by increased cost competitiveness, reached 36.1% of GDP in 2018. However, with growing wages and domestically driven economic growth, and the economic slowdown in Greece’s export markets, a more pronounced approach to addressing remaining structural weaknesses would enhance non-price competitiveness, leveraging both exports and investments. Progress on areas of economic diplomacy and trade facilitation, which are expected to contribute to strengthening Greece’s export performance, has been hampered due to incomplete institutional arrangements. Legislation enlarging the mandate and responsibilities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on economic diplomacy – originally planned for end-2019 – is now expected by March 2020. The strategy itself is expected to be completed by April 2020. A solid legal footing for the single authority on all relevant initiatives would allow the government to reap the synergies and policy cohesiveness associated with a coordinated approach. Further, in the absence of adjustments to governance structures and inter-ministerial arrangements, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no official role in terms of the work conducted on removing administrative impediments to trade. In fact, limited progress has been achieved in implementing the revised Action Plan that sets out trade facilitation initiatives for the next years, notably relating to the setting-up of the integrated Single Window system for imports and exports. Further, whilst the tendering process for important projects under the export promotion Action plan led by the said Ministry is progressing, the Action Plan would benefit from greater links with the wider trade facilitation and investment promotion perspective. Despite some delays mostly caused by factors outside the authorities’ control, work on investment licensing is largely on track and the authorities remain committed to completing the reform within the agreed deadlines. The authorities enhanced the administrative capacity of the Better Regulatory Delivery Directorate in charge of coordinating the investment licensing reform and will receive further technical support from the European Commission, to be delivered by the World Bank. The scope of the n...
