THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: LONDON: There's little that shouts ''seriously rich'' as much as a little island in the sun to call your own.
For Sir Richard Branson it is Neckar in the Caribbean, the billionaire Barclay brothers prefer Brecqhou in the Channel Islands, while Aristotle Onassis married Jackie Kennedy on Skorpios, his Greek hideaway.
Now Greece is making it easier for the rich and famous to fulfil their dreams by preparing to sell, or offering long-term leases on, some of its 6000 sun-kissed islands in a desperate attempt to repay its mountainous debts.
It has emerged that an area on Mykonos, one of Greece's key tourist destinations, is one of the sites for sale.
The island is one-third owned by the government, which is looking for a buyer to develop a luxury tourism complex.
Chinese and Russian investors are looking for a little bit of the Mediterranean as holiday destinations for their increasingly affluent populations. The Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is among those said to be interested, although he denied this.
Greece embarked on the desperate act after being pushed into a €110 billion ($156 billion) bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund last month, following decades of overspending and after jittery investors raised borrowing costs to unbearable levels. The sale of an island - or convincing a member of the international executive jet-set to take on a long-term lease - would help to boost its coffers.
The Private Islands website also lists Nafsika, in the Ionian sea, which is on the market for €15 million. >>> Guardian News & Media | Saturday, June 26, 2010
