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The cash-desperate Greek Government is considering selling off shares in a series of state-owned companies, including the Post Office, several casinos, two water companies and a rail operator.
Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said the rail company is losing around €1 billion ($1.47 billion) a year. Routes that are causing the principal financial losses will be scrapped.
Even after European countries and the International Monetary Fund pulled together a €110 billion ($161.99 billion) rescue package, Greece almost defaulted on its huge debt millstone last month.
Hoping to cut the budget discrepancy from 13.9% of twelve-monthly output to 2.6%by 2014, the centre-left Government reached an agreement on extensive pension and salary cuts - combined with consumer tax hikes.
Under the terms of collecting the rescue loans, the Greek government aims to create €1 billion annually from 2011-13, through privatization projects.
“Proper management of state assets - including extensive but largely uncatalogued real estate holdings - would save ‘tens of billions’ in reductions of the public debt and budget deficit,” Papaconstantinou said. The value of the state holdings have never been calculated.
Greece will release management control and sell a 49 per cent stake in rail operator Trenose, under the strategized sell-off as affirmed by the government. It will also restructure the broader Hellenic Railways group, which runs daily at a loss of close to €3 million ($4.42 million) and has accumulated debts of some €10 billion ($14.73 billion).
Dimitris Reppas, Transport Minister, said the Government would reassess Hellenic Railways workers' skills, transfer some to various public sector employments and keep those who were needed. Greek law bans the dismissal of civil servants.
Greece could have another option, however, in selling off some of its ‘Greek islands’, just as Napoleon Bonaparte sold the Louisiana Territory, of more than 2m sq mi, in 1803, to the United States for $20m to fund his war against England. He did however, resolve to keep France.
President Jefferson believed that the practical benefits to the nation far outweighed any potential violation of the Constitution, although the Constitution did not particularly empower the federal government to obtain new territory by treaty.
The Spanish had never relinquished physical possession of Louisiana to the French.
They did so in a ceremony at New Orleans on Nov. 30, 1803. This was quickly followed by a second ceremony, on Dec. 20, 1803, when the French handed Louisiana over to the United States.
About Greece To Sell State Owned Assets
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