The Francophone Business Forum is a three-day conference taking place in Athens from October 22 to 24. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras addressed the Francophone Business Forum Conference on October 22, a 3-day event taking place in Athens until October 24. Titled "Investments and bilateral and regional cooperation programmes," the event brings together members of French Parliament and representatives of Greek and French enterprises and chambers of commerce.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Evangelos Venizelos addressed the Francophonie Business Forum Conference yesterday (23.10).

The minister said that during the difficult years of the Greek crisis " French businesses remained in Greece" and assured that the extroversion of the economy is one of the Greek government’s main priorities. He further set the targets of the economic and trade cooperation of Greece and France, saying "we can do a great deal to strengthen French investments in Greece, to support Greek-French cooperation, the export activities of Greek enterprises in France, and the joint actions that can even further promote France’s economic relations with Greece.”

 The foreign minister made special reference to the sectors of construction, tourism, transport, health, RES, water resources management and information science, saying they provide "inexhaustible potential for economic cooperation between French and Greek companies."

See also MFA: Venizelos’ Welcome Speech at the Francophone Business Forum Conference (23.10)

Addressing the Francophone forum, Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis said yesterday (23.10) that "After six years of continuous shrinking, the Greek economy is expected to have a positive real growth rate in the third quarter of 2014 and a positive annual real growth rate of GDP in 2014, a 'breakthrough' development."

He said further that the next day after the memorandum must be "a day of reasonable responsibility" and urged banks, particularly after completion of the stress tests round, "to become the basic pillar of growth, funding investments and offering liquidity to enterprises." Additionally, referring to a new era of relations with the country's European partners and the IMF, Hardouvelis said a precondition was "fulfilling fiscal targets, improving economic data and continuing reforms and mostly political responsibility and stability".

He said that the only sustainable road for the future of the Greek economy was raising productivity, attracting new investments and boosting exports.