UHCC members are all 59 Chambers covering the entire country. The Union represents the Chambers at home and abroad and expresses their positions and a component of their views. All 59 Hellenic Chambers participate in the UHCC on an equal basis: Commerce - Industry - Craft and Professional. In particular, each prefecture has a mixed Chamber, except the country's three largest cities, which have three Chambers each. Using this network, the UHCC represents our country's entire
business world: namely 900 thousand Hellenic enterprises. UHCC, and the member-Chambers, are the connecting link between businesses and public administration, and the official forum for dialogue between the state and the productive classes.
By developing a fixed communication and cooperation network with its member-Chambers, the UHCC is offering Hellenic businesses various services to improve the business environment they operate in and to have better access to various financing means. Moreover, by submitting and forwarding various entrepreneurial requests, it can intervene in the decision-making procedures that pertain to entrepreneurial matters and problems, and substantially contribute to shaping economic policy. Besides - via the various local Chambers - the UHCC is the only body in Greece representing and expressing the views of the entire business world, and by extension, of the productive classes (trade, craft, professional, industrial and service businesses).
Chambers in Greece operate the most complete national communication network, on a business world level, with the UHCC being the reference centre, and the various local member-Chambers being the regional units, which are also responsible for promoting economic growth in their region's local economy. Moreover, via the UHCC link to Eurochambres (the coordinating body of all European, in the broader sense, Chambers) the above network acquires European dimensions.
The UHCC's main concern is the attempt to expand its role, as well as that of Chambers, as authentic spokespeople of the business community, mainly through taking up new initiatives in support of the country's economic growth, by participating as implementation agencies for development projects and strategic services. Chambers and the UHCC can manage development projects better and more effectively, since they possess both the necessary means and the required experience.
The UHCC mostly has a coordinating and complementary role to that of Chambers and by no means a competitive one. According to the principle of subsidiarity, the UHCC intervenes only in case its action is more effective than that of its member-Chambers. Following arrangements with local Chambers, the UHCC forwards matters of local or regional interest that needs to be resolved, in favor of the business community and local interests, to the Central Administration.
