By A. Tsimplakis
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The head of a top tourism industry association on Thursday said some 600 million euros in non-performing loans extended to Greek enterprises in the specific industry have been recently restructured, refinanced or otherwise renegotiated.
Andreas Andreadis, the well-known president of the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), also said Greek banks appear positive in lending when presented with "viable investment proposals".
Andreadis, who steps down next month as the president of the specific association, said the total value of NPLs affecting the entire Greek tourism sector reaches 3.6 billion euros. A 600-million-euro chunk of the total, as he said, will be sliced off the "bad loan" total after 12 months have passed since a refinancing scheme was agreed to by banks and borrowers.
Asked why more funding isn't flowing into a sector considered as imperative to the country's economic recovery, Andreadis said that in a recent meeting between SETE's board with officials from the Hellenic Banks Association, the latter claimed a lack of financially sound loan requests by tourism-related businesses.
In terms of the all-important 2017 tourism season, Andreadis said he believes a figure of 28 million tourism arrivals this year to Greece is a realistic goal.
In reference to tourism revenues, which according to the Bank of Greece (BoG), at least, posted a decrease in 2016 over 2015 - despite an increase in tourism arrivals - year-on-year, Andreadis said pre-booked holiday packages for 2017 "appear" to be higher by 10 percent over 2016.
