Athens News Agency: News in English, 00-12-12

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Stock Market-Close

[02] Greece-Yugoslavia-Assistance

[03] Seminar - 2004 Games - Sports coverage

[04] Greece - Japan - Chamber

[05] Central Bank-Rate Decline

[06] Greece - Transport - Palestinian wounded

[07] Greece - Yugoslavia - Kostunica

[01] Stock Market-Close

Equities on the Athens Stock Exchange finished down on Tuesday, more-or-less duplicating Mondays poor performance.

The general index finished 1.97 percent lower at 3,612.66 points, with turnover, however, up from the previous session and totalling 108 billion drachmas.

[02] Greece-Yugoslavia-Assistance

BRUSSELS (ANA B. Demiri) Greeces contribution to the emergency fund for Yugoslavia will total 22.6 million euro, the Greek delegation to the committee of donor nations to Yugoslavia announced on Tuesday.

Greece will grant 17.6 million euro for immediate fiscal support, 4.2 million euro for foodstuffs, 80,000 euro in medical assistance and 780,000 euro in humanitarian aid.

[03] Seminar - 2004 Games - Sports coverage

The Athens News Agency (ANA) will organise a seminar at a downtown Athens hotel on Jan. 8-9 within the framework of the Association of Balkan News Agencies' (ABNA) activities. The seminar is entitled "Sports and the Olympic Games in the Digital Era."

Participants include the general directors and 25 other officials from the ABNA agencies, hailing from Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Moldova, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Romania and Turkey. The purpose of the seminar is to develop conditions for joint coverage of the Athens Games by ABNA members as well as to provide constant, reliable and the adequate news gathering for subscribers in the region.

[04] Greece - Japan - Chamber

Several noted business leaders, top government officials and diplomats were on hand at a downtown Athens hotel Tuesday for a ceremony marking the foundation of an all-important Greek-Japanese Chamber of Commerce. The new chamber comes six years after a Greek-Japanese business union was first established.

According to the new chambers leadership, priorities include increasing imports to the Far East nation and attracting Japanese investments and know-how to the east Mediterranean country.

One of the areas already experiencing noteworthy growth is that of tourism, as Greece ranks as one of the top European destinations for Japanese tourists.

National Bank of Greece governor Theodoros Karatzas is one of four board members, while Tokyos ambassador to Athens, Motoi Ohkubo, attended the ceremony.

[05] Central Bank-Rate Decline

The Bank of Greece, or central bank, will lower its key short-term intervention rates by 75 basis points on Wednesday as part of a long-term monetary alignment before the country's entry into the euro zone on January 1, 2001.

The latest decline brings drachma rates to around one percentage point above their euro-zone equivalents with the central bank's base rate now standing at 5.75 percent, the Bank of Greece said in a statement on Tuesday.

The cuts are as follows: