The Lamda plans for the area are quite impressive. The redevelopment of Hellenikon will include a 2 million square meters park (one of the biggest ones in the world), top athletic installations, an upgraded coastal front open to the public and plenty of tourist infrastructures designed to draw one million additional tourists every year in Athens.

But the tourist upgrade of the area is just part of the story. Worth 7 billion dollars, the investment will create tens of thousands of work positions. It is the biggest and most ambitious investment and it will become a reality next week, when the Lamda economic bid will be officially opened.

The TAIPED announcement mentions that “after the technical councilors recommendation, the Lamda Development bid for the Hellenikon project is in accordance with the prerequisites of the contest and the relevant legal development framework and as such, it is accepted”.

The Lamda Development bid was based on investments from two powerful foreign companies contributing to the project. It is Al Maabar from Abu Dhabi, one of the largest real estate agencies in the Middle East and northern Africa and the Fosun Group from China, one of the biggest multinational clubs based in Songhai.

According to reports, Lamda Development first approached the Fosun Group during the trip to China organized by the Greek government a few months ago. It was an attempt by the PM Antonis Samaras to attract Chinese capitals to the country. Abu Dhabi company Al Maabar, which entered the bid later, is a subsidiary of Mubadala Developments, a sovereign fund. The company's running capital is at 55 billion dollars.

To read the rest of the article, please visit thetoc.gr

By Theo Ioannou

The business of half of all the start-ups is connected to cell phone applications, such as the Taxibeat application used for booking cabs.

Endeavor Greece said capital from the Jeremie initiative – channeled through four funds (Elikonos, Odyssey, Open Fund and PJ Tech Catalyst) helped in the spectacular increase of startup businesses in the country. The results also showed that Greece-based investors accounted for 72% of new investments in 2013, while IT enterprises accounted for 50% of total investments in 2013.

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A cheerful and energetic character, Kostas Koutrakis doesn't look a day of 60. Only his hands betray his love for wood and the tools of his trade. His career began in 1969, when he started off as a cabinetmaker, producing furniture on order for customers. He's also tried his hand at musical instruments, making three guitars. And he's dabbles in art, gifting his paintings to friends if they like them.

But now he's into making wooden bikes, rolling his first model out of his workshop in 2012, following a challenge from a friend.

"If you're that skilled, make a bike," she said and Koutrakis duly produced one, without much bother. But he wasn't pleased with the prototype and the fall-off in his specialised carpentry business as a result of the crisis gave him the time he needed to perfect it.

The carpenter, who is based in the eastern Attican town of Gerakas, came up with a new shape for the frame, which is made by gluing thin wooden strips of chestnut, beach and walnut together.

The fruits of his labour are a beautiful, varnished, no-gear bike, weighing only 13kg and which he insists is more flexible and just as sturdy as a metal equivalent.

It created a sensation when he wheeled it out in public. Taking it for a spin to Syntagma Square last December, everyone wanted to know where he had bought it.

"Every Friday, I do about 70km with a cyclists group called Freeday. Some of the others remark that my bike is so so nice that, apart from wanting to take it for a spin, they'd like to hang it up in their living room as a decoration," he says.

Koutrakis, who is working on five orders, is now designing models for women and children and is thinking of ways to get his bikes into foreign markets, like Holland where cyclists rule the streets.

By Pavlos Methenitis

To read the rest of the article, please visit enetenglish.gr

The companies are Folli Follie Group, Jumbo and Fourlis. Indeed, according to a report in "Kathimerini" newspaper, the three business groups were not daunted in efforts to expand abroad by the six preceding years of recession in Greece, but are planning to open new stores.

Folli Follie Group is finding recovery in the local Romanian market maintaining a long standing presence in the wholesale and retail distribution of clothing and footwear. Next September it will open the first store in Baneasa “shopping village”. According to reports in the Romanian press, the store will be operated by LT Apparel Romania, a partnership venture between the LT Apparel group and Folli Follie, which has the distribution rights for Brooks Brothers clothes for Greece, Cyprus, the Balkans and Monaco. Brooks Brothers clothes are available at 500 stores in 17 countries, while LT Apparel maintains 15 sales points in Greece and Monaco. The LT Apparel Romania with an initial capital of EUR 500,000, with 51% owned by LT Apparel and 49% by the FF Group Romania, a subsidiary of Folli Follie, according to the Romanian media.

Indeed, the Greek group will also invest in a department store in the center of Bucharest on a property already owned by Elmec. The total investment for the project comes to 5 million euros for the total reconstruction of the six-storey building. The property will be ready, in 2015, and will house the department store group in Romania, which has a wide range of FF Group brands, while the rest of the building will be leased to other users as offices.

Jumbo group will also immediately expand its presence on the Romanian market. After its original entry in Romania in the fall of 2013, with two stores in Bucharest and Timisoara, the group has reportedly already agreed to lease new large stores, taking over part of the network left by the German chain OBI. The aim of Jumbo management, which has presence in Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria and through franchise in FYROM, and Albania, is to operate 12-18 stores in Romania in the next five years, while estimates show that the first phase of development by 2016 they could obtain a sales volume of around 37 million euros.

To read more, please visit thetoc.gr.

The sculpture of god Ilissos is the first piece of the Parthenon Marbles that has ever “left” the British Museum. The sculptures were taken by Lord Elgin from Greece in 1803, when the country was still under Ottoman rule. Despite the efforts of Greek governments of the past thirty years, the Parthenon sculptures – or Elgin Marbles, as the British like to call them – were never returned to Greece.

Last Friday, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras spoke of the Ilissos loan and called it “an affront to the Greek people,” who are infuriated that the Parthenon sculptures “travel,” but not to their home. The British Museum’s argument had so far been that the sculptures cannot be moved. Now that argument is invalid, Samaras said.

To read more, please visit greekreporter.com

By Philip Chrysopoulos

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