GREEK COMPANIES LEAD THE MARCH OF PROGRESS

The Egnatia Highway, managed by construction company Egnatia Odos, is the largest roadway under construction in Europe

One of the largest road construction projects being carried out in Greece is the Egnatia Highway, the modern reincarnation of the great Roman highway known as the Via Egnatia. Behind the daunting task of constructing the 426-mile highway across mountainous northern Greece lies the innovative determination of Egnatia Odos.

Created in September 1995, Egnatia Odos is a public corporation, operating independently and applying the economic and financial criteria used in the private sector. Upon completion, the highway will be the only transport link spanning Northern Greece from west to east. From its starting-point at Igoumenitsa, it will run across nine prefectures to the village of Kipi on the Turkish border. Nine major vertical axes will provide links to Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

In addition, Egnatia Odos has committed itself to building an environmentally friendly highway. In fact, the Egnatia Highway is one of the first large-scale public works in Greece to apply a system of environmental management throughout the design, construction, and operational stages of the project. Chairman of Egnatia Odos, Mr. Ioannis Economides, comments, “In dealing with different environmental issues we have had the opportunity to cooperate with various environmental bodies, which has in turn improved our environmental approach. For example, we had problems in Epirus with the brown bear, so we changed the alignment of the road by making more tunnels. In total, we are spending more than 7% of the cost of the highway on environmental projects.”

STEFANIA TREZOU General Manager of Attiko Metro

IOANNIS ECONOMIDES Chairman of Egnatia Odos

The investment in infrastructure that Greece has undertaken has not only revamped the entire nation in terms of services and communications, sparking a construction boom in the process, but the large scale of the projects has had an interesting secondary effect in the creation of very experienced Greek construction companies, capable of successfully carrying out and managing complex major projects.

Attiko Metro is one such company. Established in 1991, the company is the mastermind behind what is the largest transport construction project currently underway in Greece and one of the largest in Europe – Athens Metro, the city subway system. The Athens Metro opened to the public in January 2000, while another five stations opened in October 2000. Today there are 20 stations in operation and 12 more under construction. The two current lines serve approximately 500,000 passengers per day, while the total rail system, including suburban trains, serves 800,000. Attiko Metro plans to extend the metro further over the next seven years to serve more residential districts, while a connection with the new international airport will also be created. The gradual completion of the project has already had a positive impact on the quality of life in the capital by reducing traffic congestion and producing a significant reduction in pollution emission.

Construction of the metro was complicated by the fact that it was carried out in a densely built capital city, concealing numerous antiquities just a few feet below its sub-soil. Yet it was carried out successfully and as a result the largest-ever archeological excavation in Athens was made possible. The excavation brought to light more than 50,000 archeological treasures, some of which are actually on display in various metro stations.