Boosting competitiveness, creating thousands of jobs. The hub deal between Hewlett-Packard, Cosco and Trainose brought smiles in the faces of Greek government, the Prime Minister and the Development and Maritime ministers.
“The deal between Hewlett-Packard, Cosco and Trainose to use Cosco΄s cargo terminal at the port of Piraeus as a hub and Traiose΄s adjacent rail infrastructure to distribute the American electronics giant΄s products in central Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and eastern Europe signed today in the presence of Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras.Greek Premier welcomed the agreement and said that Piraeus is becoming the “key” transit hub for Europe. “The deal will create jobs”, he added.
Greece inaugurated yesterday the key connection of the Greek railway network to Piraeus port in a bid to turn the country΄s biggest port into a major transit hub for the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Europe.
The new railway track which is delivered for commercial use, is regarded as a very significant work which will reduce by about a week the time needed for the transfer of goods from Asia across Europe from Piraeus port.
Through the Greek national railway network the products will be transferred to other Balkan countries and then on to Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic. (full story Capital.gr)
Thousands of jobs? Lol.
More like a few dozen patronage and nepotism positions for connected greeks and a maybe a hundred or so for illegals.
Greece can now rejoice!
John where I send my resume?
How long will it take until Greeks recognize that the Cosco-experience is THE prototype of what should happen in the country overall?
What will it take to realize that this is the last thing a country needs? This is nothing short of sweatshop policies in disguise.
HP is on course to lay off a total of 27,000 people elsewhere, and replace them with cheap labour in amongst others Greece. These policies only feed the race to the bottom, and the net result of that race is precisely what is happening in Greece today… What is there to stop these vultures from closing up shop and going elsewhere when they can get the job done cheaper? Does the Ford experience in Belgium, the Sempirit and Dell experience in Ireland, The Renault experience in Romania and Morocco not teach you anything?
These people are not interested in Greece or the Greeks, they are interested in profit. And if profit means sacking 27,000 people, like HP is doing, and starting exploiting a few 1,000 elsewhere (after browbeating them into submission with “austerity”), then that is what they will do. Today’s promise is tomorrow’s curse. Ask the thousands of people who have suffered mass layoff in recent years throughout Europe (Dell 12,000, Ford 210,000, HP 27,000, Semperit 6,000, and tell us why Greece would be immune to these policies? What Greece and every other country needs is capitalism with a social conscience, creating sustainable employment, not government enabled vulture capitalism creating profit, which is what got the world where it is today. Greece and the rest of the world need to get away from a profit based economy and create a need based economy. That is the only solution. As Einstein said, don’t try solving a problem using the same methods that caused it. It doesn’t work!
Greece as a transport hub like Holland could work very well. Even more now that oil is expensive and ships are searching for more nearby ports from the Far East to offload to. The spin-off of being a transport hub are potentially enormous. Bit like setting up a business park near a highway crossing. Only problem is this almost universal attitude that doing something for profit is a bad thing and only the State is altruistic enough to work for the good of us all…
The Dutch have run their economy on that ‘hub’-model the best part of the last 400 years and are still one of the richest nations in the world. So, it is fair to say: It works.
Hi Ephalant,
Although I agree with some of the stuff you say as no one wants to be in this situation, because it’s sad to be a person in a dead-end job with no true possibilities.
But, let me ask you this. Do you think that you or anyone can regulate what I do with my own business? For example, if I want to open a business in India for a penny an hour, and the government lets me, then why shouldn’t i try to get the most profits for my shareholders.
How do you decide what profit margin is acceptable to you, the workers and the shareholders?
For the record: you are against job creation in Greece (on the grounds that they are sweatshop jobs) and you are for a needs economy (like the needs of employees on the Greek side of the harbor who earn 100.000 EUR and more, partially through ridiculously high overtime charges). Good luck to you!
PS: a rather leftist Greek journalist told me that the wages/salaries on the Cosco-side of the harbor are ‘ok’. And Cosco is investing around 300 MEUR into a new pier which will undoubtedly create new jobs.
@ Klaus For the record, I take serious offence by your untrue statement. I am not against job creation anywhere, and have never said anything of the likes, on the contrary. You are putting words in my mouth I never spoke, which is the copy book modus operandus of somebody trying to defend the indefensible, in this case unbridled greed.
I am against economic activity for the sole sake of more profit, simply because it by necessity means that somebody has to do with less to facilitate that “more profit”. If the “more profit” attitude is allowed to fester unchecked, which current EU economic policy does, there then automatically comes a stage where the somebody being forced to do with less becomes somebody being forced to do with not enough, ie. Greece 2013! HP is in this case a prime example. The extra profit is being generated at the expense of
a) 27,000 jobs taken from people world wide (stated in their own vision for the future)
b) sweatshop jobs being created in Greece to compensate.(Announced this week)
I know you’re no fool, but your really should stop taking others for fools.
A “Need Based” economy is not, as you would seem to want people to believe, and economy that satisfies indiviual vices such as greed. That is what present day economics do, with financiers and politicians at the forefront of the disease carrying elite engaged in this kind of economics.
A need based economy is based on society as a needing unit. It has nothing to do with the “need” to satisfy the greed of a few indiviuals.
One of the main needs of any society is a lving income for those in that society. While some in Greece are looking at spending 500€ on a pair of shoes (as you yourself recalled a while ago while relating a shopping expedition with she-who-must-be-obeyed…), the vast majority are sadly lacking a living income, if not lacking an income at all.
A need based economy addresses such a situation on a permanent basis, whereas EU politics use band-aid economics to guarantee “more profit” and create even bigger problems further down the line.
@ Antonis The spiel about a transport hub, locations etc is a smoke screen. The bottom line is always MORE profit, nothing else, and by any means possible.
What if tomorrow some bright spark in another country offers these companies even cheaper labour and better tax concessions, and they move again? More austerity to whip the Greek workers in line and make them work for less again, so Greece can attract a load of meaningless dead-end jobs again at somebody elses expense?
It’s exactly what Ford did. They closed the factory in Cork, moved it to Genk in Belgium because of better “conditions” (= more profit), a few months ago the new Ford Europe CEO (who’s main accomplishment is the sacking of over 200,000 people in his Ford career!) orders the closure of the factory, officially on the basis that the models produced are old and discontinued, fireing 15,000 people on the spot.
Then suddenly the models aren’t old and discontinued any longer, but will be produced in Spain, at recently established Spanish sweat shop conditions…
Before Holland became a “transport hub”, with Rotterdam being the main driver, the hub was Germany with Hamburg and Bremerhaven the main drivers. Then it became Belgium, with Antwerp Harbour being the main driver. And why this constantly shifting around of the “tranport Hub”? Because those using it can make more profit, usually through the use of tax loopholes, lower wages, etc. Instead of engaging in this race to the bottom policy, wouldn’t Greece be a lot better off concentrating on new technology, new sources of energy, etc? But most of all, a new basis for economics. Wouldn’t it be a lot better of using a bad situation to its advantage rather than engaging in indeed band-aid economics? God knows it has the people and the resources. But why does it’s government refuse a 14 million investment in renewable energy…
@ Homie. The fact that you state that your business would look after the needs of the shareholders rather than the needs of society it is supposed to serve says it all. If it is a need-based company, one of the most important needs is not to screw people on their wages. That includes people at the other end of the world. Just because government policies leave the possibility does not mean it has to be used. That is a thing called “morality”.
Applying morality doesn’t mean screwing the shareholders on their investment, it does mean shareholders accepting that certain means of making profit are not acceptable. That is a concept called “enough”. “Morality” and “Enough”, both sadly missing in modern day economics and politics. Which is exactly where the whole problem lies.