Two digital investments by Pfizer, the Global Center for Digital Innovation and the Global Center for Business Operations and Services, were inaugurated in Thessaloniki on Tuesday by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
The investment will contribute 650 million euros to the northern port city’s economy and generate much-needed jobs, Bourla said at the inauguration of Pfizer’s Digital Innovation and Business Operations and Services center.
“We have expanded our footprint by bringing our operations center here,” the CEO said adding that Pfizer initially decided to invest in Thessaloniki two years ago.
Pfizer’s priorities, he said, are aligned with Greece’s reformist policy, which foresees resources from the EU Recovery Fund being channeled into innovation, exports and sustainable growth.
“Our country has human capital and a knowledge-based economy,” said Bourla, a native of Thessaloniki who has been with Pfizer, developer of one of the world’s top vaccines against Covid-19, since 1993.
“This is a very special moment for the city, for Pfizer and also for Albert Bourla, a true Thessalonian,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a speech at Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony, welcoming the investment.
“The discovery of the vaccine against the coronavirus bears his stamp,” the PM said.
He underlined that the two centers will employ 700 highly skilled workers, while “more than 50 young people, 15% of the staff, are Greeks returning to Greece for work after several years.”
He added that Pfizer’s expansion will help turn Thessaloniki into a “hub of major investments, which translates into increased public wealth.”