Michalis Mailis

It started as a queen’s vision and evolved into the country’s only botanical and at the same time historical garden, but mainly into an irreplaceable island of greenery in the concrete chaos of Athens.

The president of the Hellenic-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Michalis Mailis, has stepped down after three decades as a member and 12 years at the helm of the organization that was co-founded by his grandfather in Berlin in 1924.

German investments in Greece rose by 3.5 billion euros last year and accounted for around 3 percent of the country's gross domestic product with an annual turnover of 7.7 billion euros, data from the Hellenic-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce published on Monday show.

According to the chamber, German firms also employed 27,000 workers in Greece last year.