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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Olympic Games'2004 - the big chance for GreeceTwo years ago, when the world only prepared to celebrate the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, we turned our attention to the next Summer Olympic host - Athens (Greece). Then we indicated that a big chance for promoting the tourist business in Greece and the whole infrastructure around the capital city would come from the Olympic games in 2004. The experts two years ago predicted that by 2004 the number of hotel beds in Athens would rise from 70,000 to 85,000. Now despite the tourist industry downturn after 9/11 the Greek government tries to make all planned projects to be accomplished by the summer of 2004. For the government the Games are the big chance of finding financing for some important infrastructure projects and of turning the country into more developed European nation. The official opening some months ago of the new international airport of Athens in Spata (Messogia region) goes hand in hand with an explosive town regulation expansion in the same region as a whole. The region of Messogia, once backward and agricultural by its nature, now experiences a quick urban development. 12% of the whole area (42,000 acres) is to be soon regulated and added to the original Athens town plan. The population of once rural area now stands at meager 90,000 people. In the next years it's expected to increase four times with a prospect of reaching a total of 850,000 inhabitants after creating of a metro connection to the airport. The region of Messogia, which by the way will be used to accommodate some sport facilities for the coming Olympic Games, will be divided into four main categories - land for industry, housing, farming and the so-called green belts for archeology and ecological parks. The wide government and private projects in Messogia regions resulted in unusual higher demand for private land ownership. According to official statistics, the prices in some areas have reached $300 for sq.meter (1 sq.meters is appr. 10 sq.feet). In addition to the investors' frenzy surrounding the Olympic games' projects, the Greek government tries to attract increased investments through privatizing or management of some of its assets. It's expected that during the period 2000-2004 property valued at over $110 million will be sold to private developers for housing, offices, shopping centres and tourism developments and some other properties will be let on long leases of up to 99 years. In such a way the government is hoping to reduce the national debt as required by the European Union Stability and Growth Pact, which covers the Eurozone countries. Although not subject to government policy, the Orthodox Church of Greece is also exploiting the positive climate for attracting investments in advance of the 2004 Olympic Games. It has plans to build luxury hotels on three of its properties in time for 2004. They include a 750-bed city hotel on an 11,000 sq.m. site in central Athens. The two other hotels would be in resort areas on the Saronic coast.
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See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Greece.
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