#veroia

Μια μέρα χάθηκες στο πλήθος κάπου εδώ, παράξενο.

The Greek economy has been hammered by 10 years of financial crisis, with unemployment topping 20 percent every year since 2012. Now, the government thinks pot growers can help.

A project to cultivate, process and export medical marijuana in Veroia, in the fertile north of the country, shows how Greece sees cannabis as a possible growth industry for the country, which has a warm, dry climate similar to California. New legislation could make the plan a reality as soon as next summer.

The Veroia site will create more than 2,000 jobs in the next two to three years, according to Georgios Zafeiris, chief executive officer at Golden Greece Holdings, the company responsible for coordinating the project’s group of 10 investors from countries including Canada, Kazakhstan, Poland and Israel. The first round of investment is seen at 400 million euros ($488 million), rising to more than 1.5 billion euros, and 80 percent of the jobs in areas like cultivation, trading and transport could go to Greeks.