The Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou spent six days in New York last week to attend the United Nations General Assembly and the Millennium Development Goals Summit.

The Greek government has proved that it means business. We have delivered on our commitments, exceeded targets and even confounded expectations.

He has used the opportunity to hold a series of meetings with US and international political leaders as well as US business leaders in an attempt to bolster the image of Greece abroad.

Whilst in the United States George Papandreou had a 10 minute meeting with US President Barack Obama at a reception organised for heads of state at the Natural History Museum in Manhattan.

The US President is reported to have said “You have a difficult job but you are going well,” adding, “I too have a difficult job here as well.”

Papandreou congratulated the US President for his speech at the opening of the UN General Assembly and for his intervention in the Middle East negotiations.

Prime Minister George Papandreou also spent time courting the US business world and Wall Street, assuring entrepreneurs in New York that Greece is pushing through reforms to facilitate investments after receiving praise from US Vice President Joe Biden in Washington for the measures his government has pushed through so far.

“The Greek government has proved that it means business. We have delivered on our commitments, exceeded targets and even confounded expectations,” Papandreou told an audience at the Economic Club of New York, a respected forum for entrepreneurs and economists.

“In a matter of months we have pushed through the most extensive and ambitious reform program in modern Greek history,” he said before providing details of how procedures are being simplified for investments and the creation of businesses.

Papandreou said there were “many encouraging signs that investors are waking up to the opportunities that the new Greece has to offer,” noting that Norway’s state pension fund had recently invested in Greek government bonds.

In a speech at the New York Stock Exchange, Papandreou said his country had taken “unprecedented and difficult steps to tackle the crisis” and was making “real progress in fulfilling its commitments” to its international creditors, which in May promised Greece 110 billion euros in loans in exchange for a raft of austerity measures.

The Greek Prime Minister stressed that his administration was “on track” with its efforts to reduce a gaping budget deficit and push through long-delayed reforms.

He said the changes would create “new opportunities for investments in transport, tourism and the development of the green economy.”

On the political level, Papandreou had meetings with US Vice President Joe Biden and with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the side of the UN meeting.

With the latter, Papandreou discussed the possibility of Iran playing a stabilising role in the Middle East.

With Biden, talks focused on regional politics and Greece’s economic reforms.

He also held a meeting with President of the former Yugoslav Republic Giorgi Ivanoff.

Sources: Kathimerini, ANA, Wall Street Journal