Theodorikakos: 'The development law will help reduce regional and social inequalities'
"A development law is coming to parliament soon and we aim to contribute to the reduction of regional and social inequalities and also to contribute in a specific way, as far as possible, to the addressing the acute demographic problem that exists in the country", underlined Development Minister Takis Theodoricakos at the 13th Regional Growth Conference (RGC) 2025 held at the Conference and Cultural Centre of the University of Patras on Tuesday.
As he added, "through the development law, one billion euros will be given over the next two and a half years, mainly to industry and manufacturing, but also to large investments."
Part of this money will certainly be claimed by the entrepreneurs and companies of Western Greece in investment proposals. In fact, in the industrial area of Patras, projects amounting to 10 million euros are being carried out in order to upgrade it and provide better working conditions and services to employees and businesses, he said.
In parallel, as Theodorikakos pointed out, "our goal is a separate cycle of the development law to address the border regions," and he continued: "We have no right to let this whole arc of Epirus, Macedonia, Evros and the islands of the northern Aegean lag behind the rest of Greece in terms of development. That is why a separate development regime has been created, with the aim of directing serious investment to these regions and retaining young people there, who we do not want under any circumstances to leave the places where they are born, especially when it comes to border regions. This is a matter of national security, but it is also an economic necessity, which concerns not only the people there, but also all of us here. Because if the flows from the periphery to the big cities, such as Patras, Athens and Thessaloniki, continue, the cost of living in the cities will continue to rise, especially the cost of housing, which is prohibitive at the moment for young people to start their lives in the existing situations. So it is both for reasons of national security and for economic reasons that we need to support the periphery in particular, and within the periphery the border regions, so that conditions are created in order for development to be sustainable, productive and literally for the whole of Greece".