Development Minister Nikos Dendias on Wednesday called on Public Power Corporation’s employees not to go ahead with the planned strikes.

“I can see you are considering going on strike and I would like to ask you not to, because it will create additional problems to the struggling entrepreneurship, especially this year that tourism fares well,” the minister said on the sidelines of a meeting with the leadership of the National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce (ESEE).

The discussion focused on liquidity problems, with the use of existing banking tools or the creation of new hybrid programmes, both for generating new business, and for the survival of the existing ones.

He described this first meeting as the beginning of a cooperation for the plethora of problems the Greek commerce is facing, adding that the government aims at boosting liquidity. “We must try to save businesses. This is the way to prevent an increase in unemployment and even reduce it,” he underlined.

Vassilis Korkidis, ESEE chairman, stressed the need to support viable small and medium sizes entreprises so that they can deal with economic difficulties with the help of hybrid small loans.