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Businessmen, bankers and stock dealers called desperately for a sharp improvement in the macroeconomic environment in Greece. They shared the opinion that no laws on investment will bring fresh money if no urgent actions are taken. "The state perceives us as a necessary evil, which deserves to be subjected to extraordinary taxes," stated Stavros Lekakos, Managing Director of Piraeus Bank at the conference "The economic crisis as an investment opportunity," organised by the Centre for Policy Studies. He acknowledged that entrepreneurs do not look approvingly on the state, the mentioning of which evokes a sense of bureaucracy, corruption and inaction. "It is high time to change this situation of mutual distrust, because this triangle state-business-banks is destined to take the country out of the crisis," said Stavros Lekakos.

He complained that the companies, including banks can not endure the continuous supervision for long and can not live under the threat of the next extraordinary taxation. "The taxation of the Greek banks is the highest in the euro area," noted the President of the Fund for Financial Stability Panagiotis Tomopoulos. The President of the Centre for Policy Studies and former Minister of Finance of Greece Janos Papantoniou was even more explicit: "We should reduce the corporate tax. It is not appropriate the tax in Bulgaria to be 10% and 20% in Greece - all companies will go there. This tax should fall to 10% even in 2011." "There will be no investment, while there are high taxes. They pay zero tax for the first 5 years in Turkey. Moreover, the tax system is very complicated. We should have at least stable taxes, if not lower ones," urged the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry Constantinos Mihalos.

The other serious issue for both the business and the banks is the lack of fresh money in the Greek market. "Banks can not bring investors but the environment can, and when they come, we can help them. So, first we need to improve the environment and we have a lot to do. Under normal conditions we are niche banks, not large banks. We know the local conditions and we are effective there. But the conditions are not normal, and although the banks are in relatively good shape and have relatively high capitalisation and behaved reasonably during the crisis, we have a serious problem - there is no liquidity," was sincere Pavlos Milonas, Senior Director of Strategic Analysis at the National Bank of Greece. He explained that the situation is further complicated by the decision of the European Central Bank to announce Greece, Ireland and Portugal addicted borrowers and to put their banks under constant supervision. Milonas warned that 2011 will be worse than 2010 and the role of the banks as lenders of the market in 2012 will be very limited.

Stavros Lekakos, Managing Director of Piraeus Bank, explained the essence of the problem. "Liquidity is the biggest problem that we encounter. It was the capitalisation last year, but it was resolved. The banks increased their capital or sold subsidiary banks and currently their capitalisation is very good compared with the euro area average and the stress tests that are currently made will show this," he recalled. The problem comes from the fact that the Greek banks have invested 210 billion euros and have given 260 billion euros in long-term loans. This means that there is a 50 billion euros hole to which are added the holes of the subsidiaries in Southeast Europe. So, the Greek banks operate at an annual deficit of around 80-90 billion euro. "We filled it before from the international banking market, but it is close to us now," admitted the Managing Director of Piraeus Bank.

The banks should focus on SMEs, is the advice of the President of the Fund for financial stability Panagiotis Tomopoulos. He suggested that they should create small units to monitor the enterprises and to fund those that have a chance to succeed and to be recognised abroad." "The banks avail the personnel to do this. They should develop more flexible products for the ordinary citizens, an electronic invoice, for example. In this way, the state will be able to deal with tax evasion," he concluded.

The businessmen and bankers set high hopes on the government privatisation program worth 50 billion euros by 2015. "The privatisation program is correct, because it would provoke the interest of international investors. There will be additional investment in ancillary businesses," said Janos Papantoniou who, however, accused the government of sluggishness and indecisiveness. He suggested that the responsibility for privatisation should be centralised as it is currently spread among many ministries, i.e. something similar to the Bulgarian Privatisation Agency to be established. "We need new procedures and laws and new infrastructure, because we talk about a wide range of privatisation," is his opinion. He recalled that the price of phone services in Greece decreased when the national telecom operator OTE was privatised, although partly. Papantoniou expected that the privatisation of the National Electricity Company of Greece will have a similar effect. He said that the key to resolving the crisis is the shift from the large public sector to the productive private sector.

The privatisation will be refreshing for the capital market in Greece - it was clear from the words of Marina Souyioultzi, Vice-Chairwoman of the Capital Market Commission. "The Greek capital market has not followed the growth of the world markets after the crisis in 2008, because it fell into the crisis of the Greek debt. Further delay is caused by the banks’ lending difficulties," she recalled. Currently, however, the Greek capital market, the stock exchange, the banks and insurance companies as well as their supervision are controlled by the most modern legislation and this is a positive prerequisite for their future development.