Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-05-09

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

CONTENTS

[01] Connect-China

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates - Thursday

[03] Attikat-Olympic Village

[04] Keranis-Exports-Cyprus

[05] National Bank of Greece-Results-First Quarter

[06] Post Office Savings Bank-Restructuring-Flotation

[07] Weather Forecast-Thursday

[08] ASE-close

[09] Greece - Turkey - Chopper landing issue

[01] Connect-China

Connect SA, a member of the Ikona Ihos Group, is to act as the exclusive distributor in Greece of household goods manufactured by Haier, a Chinese multinational.

Haier, which holds 40 percent of the market in China, has systematically penetrated Europe in recent years, showing sales growth of more 100 percent each year, Connect said in a statement on Wednesday.

Connect is a wholesale retailer of electrical appliances.

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates - Thursday

Buying rates for Thursday

U.S. dollar 382.951

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 544.059

Irish punt 429.202

Belgian franc 008.379

Luxembourg franc 008.379

Dutch guilder 153.389

Italian lira (100) 017.457

Austrian schilling 024.565

Danish kroner 45.286

Swedish kroner 37.080

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 314.432

Swiss franc 219.484

Norwegian kroner 42.042

Cyprus pound 584.647

Canadian dollar 248.505

Australian dollar 199.444

[03] Attikat-Olympic Village

Engineering contractors Attikat, Sigalas and Proodeftiki were the winning consortium in a tender for construction of part of the Olympic Village for the 2004 Games to be hosted by Athens.

As a member of the consortium, Attikat on Wednesday informed the Athens Stock Exchange that Olympic Village 2004 SA had awarded it a segment of the overall project that includes the construction of 602 dwellings, budgeted at 25 billion drachmas and at a discount of 9.0 percent.

The contract is due to be signed on May 22, Attikat said in a letter to the Athens bourse.

[04] Keranis-Exports-Cyprus

Keranis, which is listed on the Athens Stock Exchange, is to begin exporting Italian cigarettes to Cyprus with distribution to be handled by Talbot Limited of the island republic, the Greek firm announced on Wednesday.

In addition, Keranis will import cigars to Cyprus that will be distributed by a subsidiary of the group, Puros Tabacos SA, the cigarette maker said in a statement.

Already operating in Cyprus is another subsidiary in the group, Paolo Sardini SA, which imports footwear, the statement added.

Keranis, which belongs to listed Keranis Holding SA, also announced recently that it was to start importing and distributing Italian cigarettes into Greece on May 14 as part of an alliance with ETI of Italy.

In the first phase, Keranis will handle MS Full Flavour, MS Lights and MS Club Slim, which rank second in Italy, holding 30 percent of the market, the officials said.

ETI is a former state cigarette and salt monopoly.

[05] National Bank of Greece-Results-First Quarter

National Bank of Greece, a blue chip on the Athens bourse, on Wednesday reported earnings before tax of 86 billion drachmas in the first quarter, up 14.5 percent on the same period of 2000.

First-quarter consolidated profits after minorities of the National Bank of Greece Group totalled 95 billion drachmas, up 1.0 percent from 94 billion drachmas in the same period of last year, National Bank said in a statement.

The bank attributed the rise in organic profits to a consistent application of its retail strategy and to effective management of its securities portfolio.

Also in the first quarter, new mortgages rose by 116 percent from the same period in 2000, and new consumer loans increased by 61 percent, the statement said.

[06] Post Office Savings Bank-Restructuring-Flotation

The state-owned Post Office Savings Bank is restructuring into a modern credit institution ahead of a planned part-flotation on the Athens Stock Exchange at the end of 2002, its chairwoman, Androniki Boumi, said on Tuesday.

The bank, which is due to become an SA company in September this year, is planning to set up a mutual fund management firm and an investment consultancy, Boumis told a news conference.

Also in the pipeline are the creation of an insurance brokerage firm and an e-commerce company, she added.

The Post Office Savings Bank has 2.5 million customers and 135 branches throughout the country. It has another 1,000 sales outlets through Hellenic Post Offices.

Among products the bank intends to offer are Visa credit cards, which Boumis claims will have the most competitive rate in the Greek market at about 10 percent.

It also plans to boost its current 14 percent stake in the deposits sector to 15 percent by offering new packages, Boumis said.

The Post Office Savings Bank is expected to show a slight profit decline in 2000 from 46 billion drachmas in 1999. Earnings in 2001 are forecast to rise sharply to 60 billion drachmas, she added.

[07] Weather Forecast-Thursday

Cloudy weather is forecast throughout the country on Thursday, turning to intermittent rain or storms in parts of the centre and north. Winds northerly, light to moderate, turning strong in the Aegean. Temperatures on the northern mainland will range from 10C to 20C; on the rest of the mainland from 11C to 25C; and in the islands from 15C to 23C. Scattered cloud in Athens, turning to rain or a storm from afternoon. Temperatures between 15C and 23C. Same in Thessaloniki with temperatures from 13C to 19C.

[08] ASE-close

Rumours over the resignation of Capital Markets' Commission chairman Stavros Thomadakis, although dismissed by commission officials, and talk over a decision to suspend trading on a stock share currently under surveillance, discouraged sentiment on the Athens Stock Exchange on Wednesday and pushed equity prices sharply lower.

Traders said pressure on blue chip stocks was a result of selling by emerging markets' foreign institutional investors, who were leaving the Greek bourse ahead of its upgrading into a mature market this month.

Turnover soared to 244.15 million euros, or 83.19 billion drachmas, reflecting a wave of buying by foreign institutional investors - with developed market portfolios - in the last half hour of the session.

The general index ended 1.35 percent lower at 3,112.90 points, off the day's lows of 3,090.73 points.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks dropped 1.62 percent to 1,828.33 points, and the FTSE/ASE 40 index eased 0.18 percent to 356.31 points.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks ended at 306.36 points, off 1.08 percent.

[09] Greece - Turkey - Chopper landing issue

Athens verified on Tuesday that Greeces naval chief wont travel to neighbouring Turkey if Ankara continues to object to the latters arrival at a Turkish base aboard a military helicopter taking off from Rhodes, a Greek island Ankara considers as demilitarised.

Greek government spokesman Dimitris Reppas clarified, however, that the Turkish government has not officially briefed Athens over the matter.

In stressing Athens standing position over the demilitarisation claim, the spokesman reiterated that the Greek government accepts no interventions affecting the countrys sovereignty. He also termed Ankaras interpretation of the Dodecanese island chains demilitarisation status as ?incorrect?.

Turkeys military leadership last week reportedly rejected the helicopter transport via Rhodes -- of Greek naval chief Vice-Adm. Georgios Theodoroulakis to the Turkish naval base of Aksar. Theodoroulakis was originally scheduled to attend a command transfer ceremony at the base.

A Greek military aircraft has on a previous occasion taken off from Rhodes, the largest island in the Dodecanese chain in the southeastern Aegean, to land on Turkish soil.

Specifically, a Hellenic Air Force C-130 ?Hercules? transport plane took off from Rhodes for a Turkish air base in February 1995 to return a Turkish F-16 pilot who had ejected from his plane southeast of the island due to a mechanical malfunction.

The pilot had been plucked out of the Aegean by a Greek search and rescue helicopter before being briefly hospitalised and flown from Rhodes to Turkey the same day.

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