στην εκδήλωση με τίτλο “Looking globally from Athens”
για τα 30 χρόνια του Κέντρου Ναυτιλίας, Εμπορίου και Χρηματοπιστωτικών
της Cass Business School του City University London
I feel that my only excuse for not having taken your courses is that you were not teaching as I was graduating back in 1976. But honestly I was overwhelmed with everything I heard today about your course. Congratulations for your 30 years. Congratulations to the Cass Business School for doing a fantastic job and we greatly appreciate as a world community with people who believe in meritocracy, so we thank you very much and I thank you on behalf of all graduates and non-graduates.
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends,
I am sure this is going to be a sort speech, but I have to take a really long day today at my office. I was told to talk on what can be a big challenge looking globally and I can believe that Looking globally helps detach oneself from the details and trivialities of everyday routine; and focus beyond the horizon, on the big trends.
According to the Chinese you have to look carefully around you, so that you can live the moments. And then again, you have to look beyond the horizon, so that you can acquire a notion of direction; a sense of where you want to go.
According to Aristoteles, you always have to balance between the “local” and the “global”, between a perfect understanding of where you are and a good sense of where you want to be.
The problem is that nowadays everyone loose the “local view” can be shed by everyone, it’s pretty much obvious to almost everyone. Whereas the “global view”, looking beyond the horizon, is something that few people attempt and even fewer usually accomplish.
Yet, I believe that looking globally is the necessary prerequisite of moving ahead. In other words, to put in business terms, it is a most competitive advantage of those who prepare themselves for the future; indeed, it is the competitive advantage of the pioneers who shape up the future of our world.
Of course, these starting remarks are “no news” to you. People involved in the Greek Maritime Industry for instance, have been practicing “global view” all along. Global view is your inherited trait; it is in the DNA as you said in the beginning, that you keep improving from one generation to the other. It is a good part of your everyday life and your “normal” way of doing business. This is why you became world champions.
But it is not as common in other parts of life. Sometimes politicians and journalists and businessmen urge each other to “look globally” or “think out of the box”. In other words, abstract themselves from temporary trivialities, common “clichιs” and wide spread “stereotypes”; and try to transcend the ordinary and see how they can adopt, succeed and prosper in a world that is changing every day.
I will give you an example. At this point Greece is involved in a difficult negotiation with the Troika to conclude the final review of the current Program and to enter a new phase. We are doing it responsibly and we are doing it decisively. But we are not losing sight of where we want to go. We are exiting a difficult period of successful fiscal adjustment. Implementing long overdue fiscal and structural reforms. We are entering a new era, a new period of sustainable growth, constantly falling unemployment, we are improving fiscal balances and yet we are anxious for more reforms to come, because they and only they can create competiveness, which is where we have to capitalize upon, to allow Greece to go where it should be, where should have been a long time ago.
Greece was in the bottom of world competitiveness. We have now gained a lot of ground. In three to five years we are going to be in the top of world competitiveness. This is our sense of direction at this very critical moment.
And beyond that, Greece is now emerging as a pivotal factor of stability in this very turbulent region of Eastern Mediterranean. It is not the “Achillean heel” of the European Union any more, as it used to be three years ago. It is now becoming, along with Cyprus, a stronghold of stability in our area, a source of hope for all peoples in our region. This is something that we should never forget, even for a brief moment. There is a new environment geopolitically or geostrategically, if we wish. And we have to make sure we capitalize upon the potential of this nation and upon the remarkable potential of the Greeks, as people, and of Greece as an area, that allows us to have unbelievable sources of future income that can be generated by things like oil, that I believe you know better than I do, or natural gas, that I believe you know better than I do, resources we should definitely capitalize upon and we will.
We are also building new bridges of commercial cooperation between Europe and the Far East. And, in the process, we are attracting investments to improve our infrastructures, our ports, our airports, our railway systems, our communication networks. This is not something we are contemplating for the future. It is already happening as we speak. And I don’t think we should never forget that either…
The Greek commercial fleet, our Greek champion, has a pivotal role to play in all this. It is providing us with leverage and we have to provide it with new opportunities. All these can sum up to a new role for Greece in the region and beyond and to new growth prospects for everyone.
And even beyond that, as I said, we are tapping energy resources in our sea, providing a new source of wealth for our country, energy security for Europe and new business opportunities for the Greek commercial fleet. Because the LNG vessels and the LNG terminals along the European coastline can really make Europe more secure more environmentally safe and more competitive at the very same time concurrent.
And all these are prospects that we will see them developing as we speak. I believe there are global prospects with a Greek perspective. But they incorporate major realignment of our global interests. In other words they are components of the new role our country has to play.
Of course, this presupposes a stable Greece, a Greece part of the Eurozone, well placed on a sustainable growth trajectory. And it also presupposes a stable Europe that wants to return to growth, to strengthen its internal unity and to enhance its influence beyond its limits. Because in terms of well competiveness we are not doing that good, Professor.
We have already put on the table in Greece clear glimpses into the future, some “global views” shaping our agenda of the days to come. We have already prepared much of the preliminary ground work, we have already taken some initiatives to make them happen. We are not on the starting point any more. We have already covered, I believe, significant ground.
But we can only proceed successfully, if we remain united and if we work closely together, with everyone sharing this thirst for a sold global view, solid global view.
So I would like to thank you all. And, especially, I would like to thank Mr Grammenos whose pioneering work is preparing the future and the people that will make it happen.
As a matter of fact, a good example of what “global view” means is in practice Costas Grammenos’ contribution: Vision ahead of time and beyond the horizon, as well as practical results shaping up the future and bringing it closer for everyone to see.
So, may I publically comment professor Grammenos, once again, for making us all proud.
Once more, congratulations and thanks to all of you.
