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Fighting high prices and rising competitiveness – these are the new tasks of the Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis, who left behind the Ministry of Citizen Protection ten days ago and took the economic development of Greece. As his new position assumes, the Minister of Development and Competitiveness Chrisochoidis met the experts of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission. The main topics discussed with the experts were fighting monopolies, liberalization of closed professions in the country and changes in the law on investment - measures directly related to increasing the competitiveness of the local market.

The official release of the press centre of Chrisochoidis, which announced his first meeting with the Troika, says that he is willing to ruthlessly fight high prices and that it would be a crime not to change the economic model in the country under the given circumstances. Many Greek journalists responded that after 11 months of fighting terrorism and crime Chrisochoidis is still struggling instead of finding solutions. The new Minister has to solve the hard task to prepare a new package of policies to revive the perishing Greek market. Political and financial analysts in Greece commented that following the implementation of the stringent economic measures of the socialist government of PASOK, the market completely lost its pace and competitiveness not to speak of a positive upturn. Small and large enterprises declare bankruptcy because of declining consumption and a lack of liquidity. And the latest data show that if the government fails to fill the gaps in the state budget there will be more cuts in the public and private sectors in 2011.

And while Michalis Chrisochoidis is preparing to fight on the economic front, the Financial Minister George Papakonstantinou returned from his three-day tour to find key investors together with the leaders of the Troika – Servaas Deroose (EC), Poul Thomsen (IMF Europe) and Klaus Masuch (ECB). The results of the visits of the Financial Minister to London, Paris and Frankfurt were not officially announced, but it is a public secret that Greece greatly hopes the European business circles will infuse "fresh blood" in the private sector. Meanwhile, the experts continue to inspect the Greek state institutions and the preparation of the 2011 budget is the main reason for their September visit. Particular attention is paid to the fight with tax evasion and overdue payments that may prove crucial to fill the government revenue. An interim report will be prepared after their visit on the level of feasibility of the tasks under the Memorandum of financial aid. The payment of the third tranche of nine billion euros aid will depend on it.

The Greek government must come up with a new action plan to get the next cash injection from the euro area and the IMF. The plan should include solutions to fill the black hole in the social security and health systems. The government launched a program for state property use in its attempts to reduce the deficit. This includes both the preparation of a privatization package of companies and a list of state property to be leased to private companies to maintain and use it.