An international group of real estate developers is pushing for a revamp of Greece's property development laws.
 
According to a IHT article, Greece is the only country in the European Union with no national land registry, and has just 5 18-hole golf courses nationwide.  Spain on the other hand has over 300 golf courses and adds 20 new ones a year.

 

It's not all about golf though... Find out the percentage of foreign home ownership in Greece after the jump:

 

DF: The Serbs better start getting used to Greek!

 

 

The Greek government's Privatization Committee is looking for an advisor for its planned sell off of OTE.

 

The state plans to maintain minority interests in OTE though government officials did not comment on the exact stake that they are willing to dispose.

The sale is planned for early 2007.

 The Greek state currently controls 38.7% in OTE while a change in law is required for its stake to fall below 33%.

 

DF: When the telephone system was nationalized and theOTE was established under the Ministry of Transportation andCommunications in 1949, only one Greek in 100 had a telephone line.

Greek mobile and technology retailer Germanos, which in the process of being acquired by mobile operator Cosmote, reported first half year net profits jumped 417 pct from one year ago.
The company added this was due to one of gains from the sale of its stake in Greek travel goods retail Hellenic Duty Free Stores (HDFS) as well as the sale of its participation in Uzbek's Silkway (Germanos owned a 20% stake in the Holland based company)

related...

 

The number of Greek banks that are interested in Bulgarian DZI Bank is growing, Greek newspaper Kerdos reads today. Alpha Bank and Eurobank are among the candidate buyers of DZI Bank, Reuters informs.

But it is not just the Greek banks that are interested. Belgian banking and insurance group KBC, Hungary's OTP Bank, Austria's Volksbanken and a French bank are also among the interested parties.

A Bulgarian banking sector source had previously said a French and a Greek bank had expressed interest in a possible takeover of DZI. DZI Bank is the 11th biggest bank in Bulgaria. Its capitalization is USD 175 million. It has 21 branches and 95 offices around Bulgaria.

 

DF: But lets face it folks, who will the bank most likely be sold to....yeap you guessed it Greece. Alpha Bank already has a very strong prescense in Bulgaria.

 

[dzibank.bg]

A recent article at Balkanalysis.com highlighted some of the major economic activity in Greece as of late. No longer seen as a languid economy in Europe, Greece's economic growth will have ramifications not only for the country itself but for the Balkan region as well.

Some of the Mergers and Acquisitions activity highlighted:

 

Eurobank's planned expansion to Poland.

 

National Bank of Greece has recently acquired46 percent of the Turkish Finasbank

We've been talking about the emergence of Greek wines for some time now.  Looks like others are catching up with us.

 

U.S. business magazine, Business 2.0, thinks so highly of the wine that they have declared importing the stuff as one of the best "business ideas in the world."  We also believe the probablity of Greek wines reaching a tipping point and going mainstream is highly likely considering the quality and relative abundance.

 

The thought of tasting wines across Peloponisos and then sharing them with the world is appealing to us.  Watch out! You might see a "DF"  table wine at your grocer before you know it.

 

Good read below. 

  

We just read an interesting report called "Doing Business in 2006: Creating Jobs. The World Bank published the report.  You can download it [here].  If you're a budding globe trotting capitalist, pay attention.

 

Here's a description of the report:

"Doing Business in 2006: Creating Jobs is the third in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. New quantitative indicators on business regulations and their enforcement can be compared across 155 countries—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time...The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where, and why. "

Below are the top ten economies based on the ease of doing business:

1 New Zealand
2 Singapore
3 United States
4 Canada
5 Norway
6 Australia
7 Hong Kong, China
8 Denmark
9 United Kingdom
10 Japan
.

.

. 

80 Greece 

 

DF: That's right folks, 80. Greece is the OECD country that came up with the worst ranking (80) on "Doing Business indicators." This stat probably hurt us the most: Greece ranks third in terms of economies who regulate business start-ups the most -in terms of number of procedures.

 

Does Greece encourage entrepreneurs? Hardly.  In Greece, bankrupt entrepreneurs lose their trading license.

 

On the positive side however, the report did praise Greece as having efficient courts and bankruptcy procedures.

 

Other fun facts:

 

1. It's good to be a working woman in Greece. The mandatory retirement age for men in Greece is sixty-five. For women, it'sfifty eight.

 

2. Slackers should move to  Angola as it's the most difficult country to fire an employee.

 

3. In over half the world, new businesses are still required to announce theirformation in a newspaper or official gazette.

 

4. Entrepreneurs in Serbia and Montenegro can register new businesses online,and if the entrepreneur has not heard from the government in five days, thebusiness can start.  

 

5. If you paid all your business taxes in Sierra Leone, you would pay 164% of grossprofit. 

 

Greek supermarket chain, Veropoulos, extended its reach on Friday in FYROM by inaugurating the chain's 8th supermarket in the country, and its 5th in the capital city of Skopje.

The empire doesn't end there.  Veropoulos plans to build a mall on land already acquired in the capital which will include a Veropoulos Hypermart.  Many rival groups that were vying to buy the land that the mall will be built on have been protesting the purchase by the Greek company.

  

 

Increased demand for mineral raw materials and metal products andincreasing product prices positively affected international metal pricesand Greek production in 2005, a report by the Metal Enterprises of Greecesaid on Thursday.

Aluminum of Greece is the biggest consumer of Greek bauxite. Production ofalumina and aluminum exceeded 780, 00 tones and 165,000 tones respectively,in 2005, with exports totaling 60 percent and 45 percent of totalproduction respectively. 

Other top metals that  came from Greece included: Caoline,Lignite (which Greece is the fifth largest producer of in theworld),  Bentonite, and Nickel.  Also while domestic demandincreased for Greek marbles last year, the exports dropped.

 

DF:  Repeat after us: A diversified Greek economy is a good economy.