Minister of State Akis Skertsos provides information on Greek entrepreneurship, and especially small and medium-sized entrepreneurship, in his post.

As he notes in the post “72,090 (+22.5%) more small and medium enterprises in the 5 years 2019-2024!”

In detail, “the health and growth of an economy is of course reflected in macroeconomic indicators, but it becomes much more understandable when translated in terms of the real economy into jobs, incomes and new businesses.

Together, then, with the pleasant news of Eurostat which announced today that Greece recorded in the second quarter the second highest growth rate in the EU after Poland and the highest in the eurozone (1.1% compared to the first quarter of 2024 and 2.3% on an annual basis), it is useful to see what Ergani’s figures also say about the number of businesses that created new jobs from 2019 to date.

Behind the 500,000 new jobs created in this five-year period, there are 392,200 companies operating in the 20 sectors with the highest employment in our country, which increased by 22.5% (+72,090 new small and medium-sized companies) from 2019. In fact, the increase in the number of businesses by sector varies from 3.6% to 153%!

In even more detail then, “if we examine the data collectively, it is of particular interest to highlight that, in addition to the large increase in our tourist economy (in accommodation and catering), there is a significant increase in businesses in other important sectors of the economy, such as:

– in industry and manufacturing, where the number of employers/enterprises increased by 10.9% from 36,506 in 2019 to 40,469 in 2024.

– in the digital economy and IT services, where the number of employers/businesses increased by 50% from 2,344 in 2019 to 3,518 in 2024.

– in the construction sector, where the number of employers/businesses increased by 64.5% from 13,150 in 2019 to 21,636 in 2024.

– in the supply chain (logistics – storage & transport), where the number of employers/businesses increased by 16% from 20,963 in 2019 to 23,995 in 2024.

– in health services, where the number of employers/businesses increased by 33.7% from 16,828 in 2019 to 22,495 in 2024″.

While, as he points out right after, “these 72,090 new more businesses are also a mouth-watering response to the leveling criticism of the opposition that the economic policy being practiced does not support small and medium businesses. Even more can and must be done to support business in our country. But the nullification of efforts that bring results leads nowhere.

It would be a welcome task to discuss how to create a business environment with even fewer barriers and more incentives to support private initiative. This is what we are pursuing, this is what we are working for and this will be presented in tomorrow’s speech by the Prime Minister at the TIF”, announced the Minister of State in closing.