Transactions with state to be further simplified

Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou said on Wednesday that 2024 will be a year in which procedures related to the services for citizens and businesses in their transactions with the state will be further simplified. In statements to journalists in Barcelona during the Mobile World Congress, the minister briefly referred to the immediate plans to achieve of the goal of simplifying everyday life for the citizens. Answering related questions, Papastergiou underlined the great progress that Greece has made as regards the digitization of the state and in creating infrastructure that is necessary to attract investments. But he stressed the need to speed up in some areas, with a focus on increasing broadband speeds. The minister said there should be binding timetables from telecommunications providers for the expansion of fiber to the home (FTTH) networks, in a bid to speed up the process of upgrading fixed-line broadband speeds. Papastergiou said that the ministry, on its part, will undertake actions to boost demand, such as the Smart Readiness actions subsidizing work that prepares buildings for the installation of FTTH infrastructure. Among the immediate plans is the simplification of the process for Smart Readiness. Funds from the Recovery Fund will be used to subsidize the ultra-high speed connections of those participating in Smart Readiness, he added.

Construction. Private building activity rose 25.9% in terms of volume in November 2023 in Greece, the Hellenic Statistical Service said on Wednesday, as 2,469 building permits were issued. They corresponded to 628,966 square meters of surface and 3,213,670 cubic meters of volume. November 2023 also showed a 1% decrease in the number of building permits as well as an increase of 10% in surface and a 25.9% increase in volume, compared to the corresponding month in 2022. During the January-November 2023 period, private and public building activity in Greece recorded a 7.9% increase in the number of issued building permits, a 14.8% increase in surface and a 20.2% increase in volume, compared with the corresponding period of 2022.