Greece is suffering from a dramatic economic crisis, and its heavily indebted government cannot fuel a recovery through public spending. One cost-free way to encourage growth would be to encourage more business to leverage the Internet.
In order to underline this opportunity, we recently launched an Economic Impact Study in Athens to measure the size of Greece’s Internet economy. The Boston Consulting Group produced the report independently. Our launch event attracted over 200 participants, including numerous ministers, members of parliament, business leaders and the media.
The study showed that Greece has not yet embraced the Internet as fully as most other European countries. ONly 49% of Greeks using the Internet and only 12% of them make purchases online. Almost half of Greek SMEs have either a low presence or no Internet presence. In 2010, the Internet directly contributed an estimated EUR2.7 billion to the Greek economy, or 1.2% of total Greek GDP. Without any policy incentives, this is expected to reach EUR3.6 billion by 2015, with realistic policy measures, it can even reach EUR6.5 billion by 2015.
The study offered concrete recommendations to build an "online culture” and grow Greece’s Internet economy. “Policymakers can encourage multinationals like Amazon and eBay to establish their presence in Greece by cutting the red tapes that inhibits foreign companies and startups,” BCG says. “They should also consider offering temporary tax exemptions for new online businesses.”
In addition, the government should require online completion of government forms companies with government contracts to conduct all bidding, invoicing, online. Tlecom companies “should be given incentives through lower broadband fees, public-private infrastructure partnerships, and tax exemptions to spend on infrastructure upgrades,” bringing broadband speeds throughout the country.
Last but not least, improving Internet literacy for adults and school students will create more confident online users and consumers. If Greece manages to bring these Internet-fueling reforms into place, it will help improve productivity and competitiveness of its overall economy.
You can read the full report here .
Posted by Dionisis Kolokotsas, Public Policy Manager, Greece
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