ATHENS – Greece’s surplus will be distributed to those most in need, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said during his speech at the 5th regional conference on productive reconstruction held at Ioannina, northwestern Greece.

According to estimates, he said, Greece will have the fiscal room to offer tax relief measures to middle and low income people at the end of 2018.
Referring to Greece’s exit from the memoranda, he said that “we are at a turning point and therefore complacency must be avoided.”

About the elections, he said that they will be held at the end of this government’s term in September 2019 and outlined the new growth model. “Now that the final exit from this adventure is gradually becoming visible, we must realize that the biggest mistake we could make is to want or to believe that we can return to the situation before the crisis in 2009,” he said, adding that if we do not change the production model and the growth model, the crisis will reappear.

In the primary sector, the government priorities are:

– Rapid rationalisation and restoration of injustices in the distribution of farm aid.

– Renewal of the rural population.

– Production of agricultural products, with the potential for competition and extroversion, which can only be achieved through collective, collaborative professional schemes.

– Development of research and innovation in the agro-livestock sector, which is a very important issue, because it adds value and creates infrastructure. This also requires support from a new scientific potential.