ATHENS – Digital Policy, Telecoms and Information Minister Nikos Pappas will visit the United States from February 5 to 9, ahead of the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) 2018 to hold talks with American businesses.

The visit is hoped to raise interest in American companies’ participation in the Fair, where the US is this year’s honored country, and to provide information to large audiovisual businesses of incentives legislated by the ministry recently. Pappas’ busy itinerary includes the sectors of innovation and hi-tech – the focus of the American pavilion at TIF – and large film studios.

Earlier on Friday, at the signing of an agreement for digital content sharing between Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) and US-based BGG, US Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt said Pappas will be accompanied by Jonathan Cohen, deputy assistant secretary for southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

Cohen and Pappas will begin their contacts in California, visiting Hollywood and Silicon Valley companies, then fly to Boston and hold meetings at MIT before wrapping up their itinerary in Washington, DC, “almost exactly one year after his visit to Washington, DC at the beginning of the Trump administration that set the tone for a lot of what we’ve done over the past year,” Pyatt said.

Commenting on the trip, the American ambassador said, “I’m very excited about these visits because for me one of the really untold success stories of the Greek economy is the success of the startup sector. The spirit of entrepreneurship you find among young people at universities here in Athens, in Patra and in Thessaloniki – I think this is exactly the right time to put a spotlight on that part of the Greek economic story.”

Pappas and Cohen will also be accompanied by a delegation of the Secretaries General Lefteris Kretsos (Information and Communication), Vassilis Maglaras (Telecoms and Post Offices), and Stelios Rallis (Digital Policy), as well as special advisor to the minister Giorgos Christoforidis.

Their schedule is as follows:

– Monday, February 5, Los Angeles: Meetings with audiovisual production companies, TV studios, and innovative businesses

– Tuesday, February 6, San Francisco: Contacts with hi-tech companies, innovation and video game production

– Wednesday, February 7, Boston: Fiber optics companies, universities specializing in new technologies and their advancement

– Thursday, February 8, New York: Meetings with business leaders from various sectors

– Friday, February 9, Washington,DC: Work meetings with American government officials and agency representatives