The parent company of Coca Cola has chosen Athens as the headquarters of the new Citizen Interaction Center for Central and Southern Europe. The Citizen Interaction Center will be the administrative and operational center for Coca Cola's online and social networking activities in the region. Its operation is scheduled to begin in early 2014 and with its full development in 2015, it will cover 23 countries in Central and Southern Europe. Earlier, in the presence of the Ministers of Development and Labor, the inauguration of the Nokia Research and Development Center in Greece took place, at the Nokia Solutions & Networks facilities, at the 14th km. of the Athens-Lamia national road.
The investments of the two business giants are translated as a vote of confidence in the prospects of the Greek economy and are expected to create new jobs.
Coca Cola's decision was announced in a letter to the Prime Minister by the president and CEO of the global "The Coca Cola Company", Muhtar Kent, and the president of the Central and Southern Europe business unit, Nikos Koumettis.
The letter states that the decision was made following the meeting with the Prime Minister that took place last September in New York, within the framework of the event organized by The Hellenic Initiative.
The establishment of the Center in Athens, it is emphasized, "reflects our belief in Greece's potential to return to a growth trajectory and in the added value of the special skills of Greeks" and the decision to invest "was made based on the know-how and language training that Greeks possess, as well as our ability to contribute to society by offering attractive and high-level employment positions to young talented Greeks in the growing field of social networking and communication.".
"Vote of confidence" also from NOKIA
Earlier, Nokia's Research and Development Center in Greece was inaugurated. In his speech at the inauguration ceremony, Development Minister Kostis Hatzidakis noted that this is the implementation of the plan that executives of the Finnish company had presented to him and the Prime Minister last April, within the framework of which an additional 150 jobs will be created for Greek engineers in the first phase.
As Mr. Hatzidakis underlined, for Greece this investment is threefold important, as firstly it is being made in the midst of a crisis, secondly, because it concerns a cutting-edge technological sector where Greece has great potential and thirdly, because it is being carried out by a large and reliable company at an international level. Among other things, he added, "this investment is also a vote of confidence in the country, with tangible results.".
Nokia Solutions and Networks' decision to invest in the youth of our country, staffing its model research center with young scientists, is a move of high economic and social symbolism, commented Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis, "it constitutes a vote of confidence in the capabilities and prospects of the Greek economy, but also in the quality and enormous potential of our country's human resources.".
As he said, this is a move that sends messages to the country's business world to think and act with greater insight. To break free from the suffocating and dead-end logic of daily and opportunistic management, investing in the future of Greece. Investing in its human resources and its young people.".
For her part, the press officer of the parent company, Victoria Main, stated that NSN considers Greece to be a safe haven for investments, while the Ambassador of Finland, Pekka Lintu, acknowledged that significant work has been done by the Greek government to improve the working and investment environment, and NSN's investment is proof of this.
Source: techit.gr
