Galery

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Have the volume of work reduced after the global economic crisis in 2008 and how does the current state of the Greek economy affect your business?  

The late 2008 crisis definitely affected us a lot. It was said that overseas problems could not affect Greece but our company felt the hit quite strongly mainly because it is export oriented. Orders from abroad began to fall down one after another and in a period of significant progress and expansion of the volume of work and investment. At the same time, due to the increased interest and the large number of new orders we had increased the number of employees too. We had to take immediate measures to survive and one of them was to seriously reduce the number of employees. We discharged around 40% of them. We've tried to do it in the least painful and the most honest manner, under the existing law.

After the market improvement, we restored more than half of the jobs lost in 2008 giving priority to workers injured during this period. We want to be honest and hope that conditions will allow us soon to expand jobs to the old pre-crisis levels. Generally, I can say that 2010 is one of the most successful years for us and hope things will go on that way. The reason for success is not due to the fact that the market has grown to such levels that there is a need for large amounts of raw material. It is just some competing companies could not survive and ceased their activities. It left more room for us.

Regarding the Greek economic crisis, I can say that it does not affect us seriously because we are directly dependent on international conditions, which are now relatively calm. We should not forget, of course, that when the house of a neighbor burns the fire can come in our yard.

Foreign or local companies are your biggest competitors?

We have competitors abroad, but the biggest competition comes from companies on the domestic market. The country has large reserves and Greece traditionally takes one of the first places in the export of bauxite for the western world. There are similar and much larger resources in China and Australia, but Greece holds the first place in Europe. Aluminium is a relatively modern metal, unlike the copper industry which began to develop in the period between the wars and made its boom after the World War II. When speaking about competition it definitely comes from other Greek companies.  

Do you think the objectives set by the European Union to reduce air emissions known as 20/2020 (20% less harmful emissions by 2020) will negatively impact your business and the resources your company offers?  

This can not directly affect our business. The question is how much it will affect the activities of our customers that operate in the bauxite processing and aluminum production. Generally, I think the purpose of this campaign is not to reduce productivity but to improve the technology that released harmful substances into the atmosphere until now. I think companies like ours will not be affected by the changes in the medium term. Of course, there have not been established completely effective way for energy production with no harmful emissions to the air and I can not predict how this initiative will develop. I think that neither these who took the 20/2020 decision, nor those who want to implement it may foresee the consequences of this initiative. It appears now that a new financial market was established exchanging the harmful air emissions (according to the Kyoto agreement - author's note).