Athens, Beijing hope to further cooperation

Q: Good afternoon, Mr. Fotis Provatas. I'm with China News Service. As you mentioned on Thursday that it is the first time in recent 10 years for the government of Athens to lead a business delegation to a foreign country, so my questions is why you choose Beijing as the first destination of your tour, and what have you achieved during the visit?

Fotis Provatas: It's a very simple reason that we choose Beijing. In Athens we have a great number of Chinese business people, about 20,000. Because of the economic crisis, business of other countries like Japan and Portugal did not has so much work to do. We work with Chinese embassy in Athens to support Chinese businesses in the city. We provided opportunity for these Chinese businesses to export from Greece to China. We want to make the Chinese companies more competitive. This is why we make an umbrella to support Chinese businesses in Athens. That is a way to bring benefit to both sides. That is why we are here and lead our big companies to Beijing to promote the cooperation between the business communities of two sides. We could say the officials here are helping and welcoming to support the cooperation. So we have very good environment. This is quite supporting for the business men.

Q:It was the 2004 Athens Olympics that opened a window for the Chinese to know more about the city. Eight years have passed since Beijing and Athens became sister cities, and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games also provided an opportunity for the two cities to strengthen the friendship. So moving forward, what do you think the two cities could do to further promote the cooperation?

Fotis Provatas: The 2004 Athens Olympics was a very successful one, and Beijing Olympic was a perfect one. So you may understand why we are sister cities and twin cities. We must not forget that although the two countries and the two people are far away, may be the cultures of the two countries are different, they are cultures, and people live in cultures. People living in Greece can see old monuments, and people in Beijing can also find ancient monuments. This links people more closely; this is why we want the Chinese tourists in Greece, and that is why Chinese want to come to Greece.

Q: With splendid history and culture, both Athens and Beijing are world renowned tourism destinations. Tourism has been playing a vital part in the cooperation between the two cities, so what efforts would the two sides do to achieve a win-win situation in tourism, so as to strengthen the friendship?

Fotis Provatas: Not only tourism, we are also organizing the relations of Beijing and Athens in such a way that Athens will become something like a gate of Beijing and China to Europe. We are now preparing with the University of International and Economics in Beijing and the Athens universities for a post graduate program which will be based in Athens, and we will be gathering students and professors from China and the European Union with the goal to study the Chinese and west European relations, something which has not been done yet with other European universities. The program has not only western European professors, and but also Chinese professors. In Athens, we are creating a hub, which is a place where we will facilitate the business men and this is dedicated to the Chinese business men. We will attract these Chinese business men to come and to get benefit from the hub, which we made to support them to make businesses not only with companies in Athens and Greece, but use Greece as an bridge for them to make business with other countries in the European Union.

Q:Beijing and Athens established a cooperation committee earlier this year, which offered a regular working mechanism for cooperation. What was the purpose of establishing this committee? What kind of role will it play in strengthening cooperation between the two cities? Is there a long term planning for an even more extensive cooperation?

Fotis Provatas: We established this cooperation committee with high level officials from both sides. Because we want a permanent secretariat commission from both sides who would take care of and supervise the cooperation of both sides, because it is a project we will not live it alone. I say it again that it is not a relation between Beijing and Athens, it's a relation of Beijing and China, through Athens, with the European Union, today with Mr.Lu Yong, we will have a meeting this afternoon, we are going to discuss how we will use our work to attract 15 to 20 capitals in Europe, and how we will use our influence to link all of these capitals to the union of the world tourism cities. Beijing is the capital of one of the ancient civilization, and Beijing may attract many more tourists, and tourism is a great industry linking money, development, prosperity to the population. You see everything we do is for the prosperity of the citizens, so we want to support Beijing,and Beijing will also support Athens to develop tourism. So we can achieve win-win situation as you say here in China. One win, and the other will win, this is the real friendship.

Q: Since the beginning of this year, Beijing has suffered from frequent smoggy weather. The poor air condition has become a major concern for local residents, are there any success stories Athens can share with Beijing in promoting the air quality? In the future, would Athens cooperate with Beijing in air pollution control?

Fotis Provatas: A very interesting question, I have seen the officials here in your city, they are very anxious about the situation with the environment, I understand the problem because we see it these days. These problems may be solved with appropriate policies. We had in Athens 30 years ago the terrible problem, the situation is almost the same. We could not breathe, so we decided, development that has been designed for the citizens, must be for the citizens, which means the development must be more balanced, and more harmonic. It's not only about the figures, it's not only the quantity of the development, and it's the quality of the development that matters. The authorities here in Beijing understand very well about the problem. In Athens, we solved the problem, and we are ready to support our friends in Beijing, because we had this very bad experience. We know how you feel if you cannot breathe, so we want to support with our scientists, who did the same in Athens, to support the experts in China to cooperate and solve the problem.

Q: We have seen that three years after the outbreak of the debt crisis in Greek, strikes happened again this year. As the capital of Greek, what has Athens done to help the country to recover its economy these years？

Fotis Provatas: We had problems in our economy, and we are still having problems in our economy. But the situation has been stabilized little by little. The economy is showing an upward trend recently. I think we are in a good way. Of course we still need hard work. We need two to three years of very hard efforts. It is a European crisis, it is not only concerns about Portuguese, Spanish, French, it's a crisis of the modern European Union. However, some countries like Germany do not see it as a European crisis, and they consider it a crisis of southern Europe. But the globalization makes all the economies very closely tied, so more and more European leaders understand that what we need to overcome the crisis is unity. The European Union should find common solutions with other countries from the United States to China. We must cooperate to overcome the crisis. We are in a good way in Greece now. Crisis provides opportunities. It is a proper time for wise investors to investigate the situation and to invest to where is more profitable. Crisis also provides opportunities, which we also expressed the concept to officials in China.

Q: There are some Chinese businesses leaders in your delegation. As you mentioned that the local government would support their businesses in Athens. What are the difficulties that have been challenging the Chinese companies amid the debt crisis? And what has the government done to help them to combat the crisis?

Fotis Provatas: We are cooperating very closely with them; we are supporting them as we support any citizens of Athens. We are supporting them in their business, that's why you see there are leaders of Chinese business community in our delegation. Traditionally, they were importers of Chinese goods, however, with the economic crisis, it is not the best job today. There are not as many as imports of Chinese goods as before. So we are transforming these Chinese companies to exporters of goods to China. We have excellent agricultural goods, the olive, the wine, and the honey, which can be exported to China. The Chinese business companies are doing these jobs very well, so we support them and they support the development of the Greece economy at the same time.

Q:It is in this month that China unveiled a new leadership, and the Chinese President Xi Jinping has advocated "the China Dream" concept. As a foreign official, how do you understand this concept? Against the background of globalization, if we take the cooperation between China and Greece as an example, what do you think "the China Dream" mean to the world?

Fotis Provatas: China is one of the world leaders. China has a huge number of populations, and its economic development speed is also very fast. Everyone should see the fact that China is a leader in the world. So we understand that China and the new decisions of the communist party tend to present in the world a new country and a new hope. That is what you call it the "China dream", and we welcome this. We welcome the opening of China. We need China and China needs us.