Prospects of the ICT sector in Greece

Study of the ICT sector in Greece: Current Situation and Future Trends
Deliverable 14: Prospects of the ICT sector in Greece-policy implications
priority in their investment planning. But ICT firms are also responsible for that, at least to a
certain degree. The “easy” sales of equipment in the past and the standard products/services
they used to offer might have been disproportionate in relation to the size of Greek firms and
the needs of Greek users. Thus, they may have created some sort of mistrust 13 .
As a result, ICT use in the Greek population has been settled, while firms increase slowly
their ICT use. Even if an important portion of the population and firms use and apply ICTs to
a degree comparable with other developed countries, a digital gap has emerged. Significant
categories of people and firms do not follow these trends. At the same time, there are some
“rock-steady” parts”, that is large categories of population and entrepreneurs that do not
accept the ICTs because of technophobia. They claim that there is no reason or any interest
or any policy measure that would change their view about the necessity of ICTs.
Thus, although reasonable prices and availability of services may amplify a weak demand,
training potential customers and awareness of the practical benefits from ICTs are far more
important and offer longer-term benefits. The first step seems to be the broader diffusion of
Internet use that will permit for the acknowledgment of more services that could attract
greater parts of the population and firms.
…such as external demand, mostly because of the lack of extroversion
Although more intensive export activity usually constitutes a solution for small – sized
domestic market, export activity of ICT firms is of small scale: almost 60% of the sector
operates exclusively in the domestic market. Thus, external trade of ICTs goods remains
limited and is less than the ICT trade of 2000. Exports comprise just 14% of the total trade
flows, while in 2005 ICTs goods comprise the 5.2% of the value of the total external trade of
Greece (7.3% in 2000). European Union is firmly the primary supplier of ICTs products,
whereas in 2005, it becomes the basic recipient of the Greek exports. This reflects an effort
for an empowerment of the export activity to more developed countries.
Therefore, small size of the domestic market does not seem to prompt towards a strategy of
entering into new geographical areas14. Firms are reluctant and have limited interest in
investments on export activities, while size affects significantly such behaviour15. Thus, any
13 In EITO 2005, it is pointed out that this misfit of ICT products / services and real users’
needs is at least a european problem. In fact it has led in the past many European firms to
postponing their investments on ICTs.
14 Field research on ICT firms, 2006 (Deliverable 5b)
15 According to the Pan-Hellenic Association of Exporters, the basic problems of the Greek firms to
demonstrate a more intense export activity are related with their weakness of finding access to financial
mechanisms, lack of tax incentives, domestic bureaucracy, the high premiums of export credits, etc.
October 2006
Observatory for the Greek IS 25