The Expansion of the Contemporary Economic Role of Crete throughout its Extensive History

Abstract

This article investigates the contemporary economic role of Crete through its history of many centuries. More specifically, it considers the effect of the natural, climatic and marine environment in the productive economic activity, in the international trade and its relations with its neighbors, as well as Crete’s modern financial, developmental characteristics and its position in the Mediterranean, in Europe and the World. From the review of the relative, with the economy of Crete, bibliography, ranging from antiquity until today, as well as from the analysis of modern related quantitative data, it is realized that the basic elements that determine the economic identity and the position of Crete in the international environment during its extensive history are the ground and the products that it produces, the marine environment and the interconnections that it creates with the world, the climate, and the favorable conditions that it shapes for the flora and the fauna and its human resource, as this develops in the particular historical environment each time. These are the characteristics, along with the multiform and rich accumulated cultural reserve, which Crete can evolve and strengthen in the contemporary world so that it cures its disadvantages and most importantly so that it takes advantage of the developmental surplus of possibilities that it allocates. Crete has all the prerequisite conditions- productive and human resources, research and technological infrastructure, democratically programmed institutions- and allocates the initial conditions for a developmental take off, in the frame of flexible specialization, intelligent and viable growth.