我们需要中远集团的投资|《财富》专访希腊央行行长

在描述自己的国家时，很难想象有什么比这种说法更令人不安的了：“经济正位于低空飞行轨道上……里面还有已经点燃引信的炸弹。”希腊新任财长克里斯托斯·斯泰克拉斯在7月早些时候就职时如此表示，在此前7月7日的选举中，保守的新民主党击败了亚历克西斯·齐普拉斯领导的左翼联盟政府。

现在，新总理基里亚科斯·米佐塔基斯——这位哈佛大学毕业的风险投资家面临一项紧迫的任务，确保这些炸弹不会像2010年代初那样在半空中爆炸，当时希腊濒临破产，即将被迫退出欧元区。这个国家经受了巨大的痛苦：GDP在8年内缩水了26%，这是和平时期任何一个国家历史上都不曾遇到过的最大经济衰退（也许大萧条除外）。

得益于国际货币基金组织和欧盟提供的约3000亿美元的救助，希腊的1000万公民仍然是欧盟成员。但希腊需要感谢的还有其他援助方，尤其要感谢中国。中国国有企业航运巨头中远集团目前拥有希腊最大的港口比雷埃夫斯(Piraeus)。在7月的《财富》杂志中，我们前往比雷埃夫斯，描写了这笔交易对于解决希腊经济困境多么重要，对于中国国家主席习近平的全球雄心多么重要。

未来可能会有更多这样的交易。米佐塔基斯在上周向BBC表示，“我的首要任务是提升希腊对资本的吸引力”，他承诺从明年1月1日起将企业税从28%降至20%。米佐塔基斯说，外国投资的参考模式是比雷埃夫斯港。

在上任的头几周，米佐塔基斯政府批准了中远集团在比雷埃夫斯港的扩张计划，包括建新的五星级酒店和一家豪华购物中心，齐普拉斯政府曾经搁置了该计划好几个月。米佐塔基斯政府还表示，将结束近年来的资本管制。

我们在雅典对希腊央行行长亚尼斯·斯图纳拉斯就一系列广泛的议题进行了采访，我们发现，希腊经济复苏仍然有很长的路要走。斯图纳拉斯阐述了这个国家如何能够从现代社会中最黑暗的十年中走出来。以下是经过编辑的采访内容：

《财富》杂志：希腊经济危机结束了吗？

亚尼斯·斯图纳拉斯：好多了。竞争力得到了提升，银行体系也实现了资本化。当然，危机也留下了后遗症，债务占GDP的比例仍然很高。存在人才流失和投资缺口的问题。这些问题将绵延数年。我们已经成功解决了流动性即赤字的问题。但是股票、高负债、不良贷款的问题更加棘手。

你说“数年”，你预计什么时候才能够真正走出这场危机？

要将占GDP180%的债务降至100%以下，需要好几年时间。

谈谈中远集团对比雷埃夫斯港的投资吧，中远集团计划中还有大量投资尚未执行。

是的。我们迫切需要外国直接投资。为了实现更高的增长率，我们需要更高的投资。我们的投资只占GDP的10%。在危机之前，我们的投资占GDP的20%。因此存在投资缺口。由于债务危机的后遗症，我们无法借款，或者说借款条件非常难。因此我们希望进行股本投资，或者我们所说的外国直接投资。

外界认为希腊已经走出危机。你们在2018年夏天退出了欧盟的救助计划。你们是否已经脱离困境了？

显然没有。一个刚刚摆脱经济紧缩的国家需要谨慎行事。

对于普通希腊人来说，这几年的紧缩有多难？

对一些人来说，非常非常困难。成千上万的人离开了这个国家。对于那些留在希腊的人来说，这些年来他们的收入平均减少了25%以上。这是非常非常严重的，可能仅次于美国20世纪二三十年代的大萧条。而且这种情况在希腊持续的时间更长。因此，我们永远都不能忘记这个教训。这就是为什么希腊央行认为应该发出警告时，就要发出警告。

你从这段黑暗的岁月中学到了什么？

我们应该高度警惕。当时的问题是我们超出了预算的目标。在过去的某个时间点，我们的预算赤字曾经达到GDP的50%。这是非常高的比例。这意味着没有人关注国家的财政状况。这就是为什么我说，我们今后永远、永远不能让类似的情况重现。

无论走到雅典的哪个地方，人们都在谈论人才流失。希腊的人口危机、人口缩水有多严重？

由于希腊的危机和经济衰退，几十万的人才离开希腊到国外工作。希望我们能够让其中的一些人回心转意。不是在遥远的未来，而是立即做到这一点——通过实现更高的增长，创造新的就业机会，支付更高的薪水。

希腊的人口增长正在下降，人才外流造成了低增长率。这意味着潜在的经济增长率也在下降。扭转这些趋势并不容易。只有创造好工作，我们才能够让那些离开的人重新回国，尤其是可以多生孩子的年轻夫妇。但他们需要更好的工作，而在短期内，这意味着我们需要进行结构性改革，我们需要直接投资。我们很有潜力。但要发掘潜力，希腊需要外国直接投资——现在马上。（财富中文网）

译者：Agatha

It is hard to imagine a more unsettling description of one’s country than saying that “the economy is on a low flight path…and it contains bombs with lighted fuses.” That assessment came from Greece’s new finance minister, Christos Staikouras, earlier July when he was sworn into office, after the conservative New Democracy party trounced the left-wing Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras in elections on July 7.

Now, new Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis—a Harvard-educated venture capitalist—has the urgent task of ensuring that those bombs do not explode in midair, much as they did in the early 2010s, when Greece teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and came close to crashing out of the Eurozone. The country’s pain is legion: Its GDP has shrunk 26% in eight years—the biggest recession in history of any country in peacetime, save perhaps for the Great Depression.

Thanks to a bailout of about $300 billion from the IMF and the European Union, Greece’s 10 million citizens are still E.U. members. But there were other thanks to give for the rescue, in particular to China, whose state-owned shipping giant Cosco Shipping Group now owns Greece’s biggest port, Piraeus. For July’s Fortune, we traveled to Piraeus to describe how that deal became critical to Greece’s economy, and to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s mammoth global ambitions.

More such deals might be ahead. Mitsotakis told the BBC last week, “My number one priority is to make Greece an attractive destination for capital,” and vowed to cut corporate taxes from 28% to 20%, beginning on Jan. 1. The model for foreign investment, Mitsotakis says, is Piraeus.

Within its first weeks in office, Mitsotakis’s government has approved Cosco’s expansion plans in Piraeus for new five-star hotels and a luxury shopping mall—investments that Tspiras’s government had blocked for several months. It has also said it will end capital controls imposed in recent years.

But Greece’s economy still has a long recovery ahead, as we discovered when we sat down in Athens with Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras for a far-ranging interview. Stournaras laid out how the country can dig out from its darkest decade in modern times. Here’s an edited version of our interview:

FORTUNE: Is the Greek economic crisis over?

Yannis Stournaris: It is much better. Competitiveness has improved, the banking system is capitalized. Of course, there is the legacy of the crisis, which is still high debt as a percentage of GDP. There is a brain drain and an investment gap. These problems will stay for a number of years. We have managed to solve the flow problems, which is deficits. But the stock problems, the high debts, non-performing loans, they are more difficult to tackle.

When you say “a number of years” what is your prediction of when you will truly be out of this crisis?

To bring down a debt of 180% of GDP to below 100%, it will take a number of years.

Focusing on Cosco’s investment in the port of Piraeus, a lot of investment that Cosco planned has not yet happened.

Yes. We desperately need foreign direct investment. Because in order to achieve higher growth rates we need higher investment. We invest only 10% of GDP. Before the crisis we invested about 20% of GDP. So there is an investment gap. We cannot borrow, or borrowing conditions are very difficult, because of the legacy of the debt crisis. We so hope for equity investment, or what we call direct foreign investment.

There is a perception outside Greece that the country is out of the crisis. You exited the E.U. bailout regime in the summer of 2018. Are you out of the woods?

Definitely not. A country which is just out of austerity needs to be careful.

How difficult have these years of austerity been for regular Greeks?

For some of them, very very, difficult. Hundreds of thousands have left the country. But for those who stayed in Greece, there has been an average reduction of income of more than 25% during these years. That is very, very serious, perhaps only second to the Great Depression of the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s. And it lasted longer in Greece. So that is why it is a lesson that we shall never forget. That is why the Bank of Greece needs to warn when it feels it should send warning lights.

What is the lesson you have learned from these dark years?

We should be very vigilant. The problem was we exceeded the targets of the budget. At some point in the past we had a budget deficit of 50% of GDP. That is extremely high. Which means that nobody paid attention to the fiscal situation of the state. That is why I say we should never, never go back to a similar situation in the future.

Everywhere we go in Athens, people talk about the brain drain. How bad is the demographic crisis in Greece – the shrinking population?

Hundreds of thousands of talented people have left Greece to work abroad, because of the crisis conditions here and the recession. Hopefully we will be able to bring some of them back. Not in the distant future, but immediately, by achieving higher growth and creating good new jobs, with good salaries.

The brain drain produces a low growth rate because the population growth is declining. That means the potential growth rate of the economy is declining too. It is not easy to reverse these trends. Only by producing good jobs can we bring back people who left—especially young couples producing more children. But they need better jobs to do that, and in the short term that means we need to do structural reforms, and we need to have direct investment. We have a very high potential. But to exploit that, Greece needs foreign direct investment—immediately.