Deutsche Welle cast the focus on Namco’s 80-year-old boss Petros Kontogouris, the head of Greece’s only car factory, who has called on Germany to help pull Greece out of its crisis. The veteran entrepreneur wants Germany to support the Greek car industry and help the country export again.

Mr. Kontogouris says his company is bogged down by the paperwork and he is currently at loggerheads with Greek bureaucracy. At the moment he is waiting for the building licenses and approvals from a Greek government testing department to come through before Namco can start building it’s fourth-generation Pony.

Namco spokeswoman Ionna Papapanagitou and CEO Petros Kontogouris

Namco’s Thessaloniki plant is capable of producing 6,000 to 8,000 new cars per annum, enough to get a toehold in the world market. Its boxy Pony has a name as a tough offroad car available for one-third of the price of similar models from global markets and has an enthusiastic fan club. Now the Pony 4 is ready and construction can help create 2,800 new jobs in hard-hit northern Greek regions but it still has to wait for government approval.

“We do not believe in the banks and their lending policies, which caused worldwide economic chaos,” Kontogouris told DW. “We are relying on broad-scale support. Despite that, right now we are present in the markets of Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Mozambique and Vietnam. We’re currently building a car for Vietnam with the engine from the Toyota Yaris.”

Mr. Kontogouris believes in the quality of his product and in Greece’s highly-skilled automotive engineers who, unforunately, can’t get work and have emigrated to places like Germany as a result.