Greek-Saudi opportunities. Turkey-housing credit.

Additional contributions. Freelance professionals who are also in salaried employment, including those who work for one employer exclusively, issuing service invoices (“blokaki”) for their salary, will under certain conditions be asked to pay additional social security contributions applying retroactively from January 2020. The contributions for 2020 will have been determined by next month and those for 2021 by end-May.

A total of 100 Greek and 90 Saudi businesspeople participated in an online event about expanding economic relations between Greece and Saudi Arabia this week, titled “Saudi-Greek e-Business Gathering: Racing to our Common Future,” organized by the Arab-Hellenic Chamber jointly with the Council of Saudi Arabian Chambers. Participants included Greek Development & Investment Minister Adonis Georgiadis, Tourism Minister Haris Theocharis, Saudi Tourism Minister Ahmed Aqeel Al-Khateeb, chamber officials, and Greek Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Alexis Konstantopoulos, among others. The meeting promoted networking and virtual B2B meetings in several sectors, with an emphasis on tourism/hospitality and transfer of Greek technical know-how and experience.

Turkey’s Parliament approved regulations this week governing the interest-free funding market for housing, clearing the way for a possible boom in a system that has already drawn around 300,000 customers keen to avoid skyhigh interest rates. The so-called “savings financing system” has been used in Turkey since 1991, but a lack of official scrutiny of the creditors has so far kept some borrowers away. Housing sales and a construction boom have helped drive economic growth in recent years, but sales have declined since September, when interest rates were ramped up to tackle double-digit inflation. Mortgages covered only 15% of all property purchases in January, compared with 57% last July.