George Papaconstantinou had a busy day on Wednesday.
A whirlwind London PR offensive by the Greek finance minister to help revive confidence in the fiscally beleaguered eurozone state, included stopovers at a plethora of media outlets — the FT, Reuters TV, Bloomberg, CNBC, and even Newsnight.
The key message being (via Reuters):
“We’ve a confidence deficit which we need to address. We’re addressing it with a budget that cuts the budget deficit by 4 percentage points,” he said.
Now it seems Dubai is taking a leaf out of Papaconstantinou’s book by preparing to stage its own `confidence offensive’. As Reuters reported on Wednesday:
DUBAI/LONDON, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Two top Dubai officials are visiting Britain and the United States over the coming days to rebuild investor confidence after neighbouring Abu Dhabi helped bail out the emirate’s flagship company.
A source close to the government said the officials were already in London and would be in New York on Thursday and Washington on Friday to meet financial and political leaders.
“This is the next step in Dubai’s commitment to greater transparency,” said the source. “They will spend the next few days meeting financial, economic and political leaders in London, New York and Washington, D.C. to discuss the actions taken this week to stabilise global markets.”
Related links:
I Have Confidence Lyrics - Maria, Sound of Music Lyrics
Another downgrade for Greece – S&P cuts to BBB+ - FT Alphaville