Armed with a double credit rating upgrade for the Greek economy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis is embarking on a five-day visit to the United States, beginning in San Francisco, with a focus on attracting foreign investment. Scope Ratings upgraded Greece’s credit rating to BBB+ from BBB with a stable outlook, citing the rapid decline of public debt, strong fiscal performance, and the increased resilience of the Greek economy. Meanwhile, Moody’s upgraded its outlook on the Greek economy from stable to positive, while maintaining its Baa3 credit rating.
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The Prime Minister is already in the United States, where he attends the UN General Assembly in New York each year during the High-level Week. This time, however, he is first visiting San Francisco, with an emphasis on attracting investment and capitalizing on the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence — seeking direct dialogue with the sector’s most influential players.
In California, he will hold meetings with representatives from companies including Sequoia, Anthropic (creator of Claude), Tesla, and General Catalyst. Tomorrow, he is also scheduled to meet with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. His agenda includes a private dinner with Greek entrepreneurs, investors, and AI executives based in Silicon Valley. Specifically, this morning (local time) the Prime Minister visited the headquarters of Nvidia, followed by a visit to Tesla’s headquarters. At 6:30 PM, he will speak at an Endeavor Greece event titled “The Future of AI Elsewhere.” Tomorrow at 8:30 AM, he will meet with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, and at noon he will speak at a Hoover Institution event at Stanford University — where he himself completed his postgraduate studies in the early 1990s — in a discussion that will also feature former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Following two days in San Francisco (Monday and Tuesday) — the beating heart of new technology and innovative entrepreneurship — the Prime Minister heads to New York, where his efforts will focus less on meetings with foreign leaders and more on discussions with investors, bankers, fund managers, and business executives. Among those he will meet are Morgan Stanley President and CEO Ted Pick, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Morgan Stanley Institutional Securities Group President Jeffrey Holzschuh, and Morgan Stanley’s Head of EMEA Power and Utilities Investment Banking Francesco Puletti. He will also participate in a discussion organized by the Europe Gulf Forum — an initiative by Theodoros Kyriakou, Chairman of Antenna Group, in partnership with the Atlantic Council. Additional meetings are scheduled with top executives from Citigroup, Lockheed Martin — manufacturer of the F-35 fighter jets — and ExxonMobil, which is set to participate in Greece’s first offshore drilling operation in 40 years, off the coast of Corfu, beginning next February.
According to the Prime Minister’s associates, Mitsotakis will have the opportunity to highlight the substantial progress of the Greek economy and the government’s commitment to fiscal stability and continued reform — efforts that have already resulted in steadily rising investment as a share of GDP and record-breaking levels of Foreign Direct Investment. He will also emphasize, according to the same sources, that Greece is a safe and welcoming destination for the regional operations of international companies, offering a particularly favorable tax regime for their executives. On Wednesday afternoon, shortly after arriving in New York, the Prime Minister will meet with members of the Greek-American community at the historic University Club of New York in Manhattan — a venue with roots dating back to the 19th century. The event is being held in cooperation with 28 leading Greek-American organizations and community bodies.
Also on Wednesday, he will hold meetings with foreign heads of state, major international media outlets, and representatives of prominent American Jewish organizations. On the same day, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will co-host a UNESCO event on the International Alliance for the strengthening and expansion of ocean monitoring and observation. Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to attend and reaffirm Greece’s support for OceanEye, the European ocean observation initiative. He will also hold a separate bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Carney, at a time when the Canadian leader is actively seeking closer ties with the European Union.
On Thursday morning, at the historic St. Regis New York hotel, the Prime Minister — joined by his investment adviser Dimitris Politis — will meet with more than 30 institutional investors with exposure to Greece and its largest companies. That same afternoon, he will meet with UN Secretary-General António Guterres at United Nations headquarters, followed by an address to the UN General Assembly. Earlier that day, he will participate in Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum and serve as a panelist at a university discussion on the opportunities and challenges that Artificial Intelligence presents for human development and global progress. World Bank President Ajay Banga will also join the panel, with the discussion moderated by well-known CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria.
On Friday morning, just hours before his departure from the United States, Mitsotakis will give a live interview on Bloomberg Television, appearing on the network’s flagship economics and markets program, “Surveillance.” He will also participate in a closed-door discussion hosted by Tony Blair on the theme of “Leadership in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”