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Greece: Counting on Cotton

3 minute read
TIME

In a move to expand its trade horizons, Greece last month signed up as the first associate member of the Common Market. Greece got the Six to lower their tariffs against its agricultural products, but, in return, must ultimately lower its own tariffs on manufactured goods—which will expose fledgling Greek industries to painful competition from more advanced Common Market companies.

Some Greek industrialists shudder at this prospect, but not shrewd, cultivated Christopher Stratos, 38, the managing director of Athens’ bustling Piraiki-Patraiki Cotton Manufacturing Co. By using things Greece has plenty of—cotton and cheap labor—Stratos has made his family-owned company a model for all of Greek industry. P.-P., which currently employs 3,900 workers at five modern mills, last year earned $1,000,000 on sales of $16 million. More important from a national point of view, the company’s export sales to Western Europe are steadily climbing, so that it is now one of Greece’s biggest hard-currency earners.

Overcoming the Lag. Piraiki-Patraiki (pronounced Pea-rye-key Pat-rye-key) was founded in 1919 by two textile salesmen and puttered along nicely until World War II left its mills in ruins. Rebuilding did not begin until after Greece’s civil war with the Communists ended in 1950.

But the company more than made up for the lag by sending its technicians abroad to learn the latest postwar methods used by foreign mills—and to buy the best available machinery regardless of where it was made. “In equipping our plants,” crows Stratos, “we draw on the advanced technology of everyone else.” Under Stratos, who is a son of one of the founders and son-in-law of the other, P.-P. has become so advanced that it now has technology of its own to pass on. The company’s experience of starting from scratch helped it win a $20 million contract from the Sudanese government to direct the erection of a now completed textile complex at Khartoum. P.-P. also has a $300,000-a-year contract until 1971 to supervise the operation of the plant and train Sudanese in textile making.

Filling a Vacuum. Piraiki-Patraiki’s profit is not without honor in Greece. Impressed by the company’s export successes, the Greek government is offering a cash reward to farmers who switch from growing wheat to cotton so that Greek mills will have more textiles to sell abroad.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of stepping up his sales to the Common Market still more, Stratos has drawn up a $30 million plan to double P.-P.’s plant capacity, and has applied to the Export-Import Bank for a $3,000,000 loan to kick off the expansion program.

Stratos has no doubt that other Greek industrialists, too, can fit smoothly into the Common Market if they carefully choose the right opening. In his opinion the right opening lies in the fact that Western Europe’s labor shortage is leading many Common Market companies to switch from light industry, which requires many workers, to more mechanized heavy industry. Since Greece has labor to spare, it should concentrate on light industries such as textiles and clothing manufacture. “We have the manpower,” says Stratos. “We can fill the vacuum.”

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