Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-05-10

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

CONTENTS

[01] Strikes-Olympic Airways-Pilots

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates - Friday

[03] Prince Charles - Mt. Athos visit

[04] EFG Eurobank-Results-First Quarter

[05] Weather Forecast-Friday

[06] ASE-close

[01] Strikes-Olympic Airways-Pilots

Pilots of Olympic Airways are to stage work stoppages from 7am to 10am on Friday and Monday to protest against the non-payment of overtime pay.

Representatives of the national carrier, which is currently being privatised, failed to attend an arbitration meeting, instead resorting to the courts in a bid to have the strikes declared illegal.

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates - Friday

Buying rates for Friday

U.S. dollar 381.963

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 543.183

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 45.290

Swedish kroner 37.257

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 312.500

Swiss franc 219.442

Norwegian kroner 41.881

Cyprus pound 584.516

Canadian dollar 248.052

Australian dollar 199.747

[03] Prince Charles - Mt. Athos visit

The Prince of Wales continued his visit to the Vatopedi Monastery at the monastic community of Mount Athos for the third consecutive day on Thursday, which is scheduled to leave later in the afternoon.

Bad weather on the Athos peninsula prevented Britain's Prince Charles from visiting the surrounding monasteries as he had planned, nor to oversee the work for the maintenance and opening of footpaths by the UK group 'Friends of Mount Athos', of which he is a patron.

The prince spent the day reading within the quarters set aside for him and his entourage in the monastery, and confined himself to a few short walks within the monastery itself.

[04] EFG Eurobank-Results-First Quarter

The EFG Eurobank Ergasias Group, which is listed on the Athens bourse, on Thursday reported consolidated earnings before tax and after minorities of 40 billion drachmas in the first quarter, up 1.0 percent on the same period of 2000.

First-quarter consolidated net profits after tax and minorities totalled 30 billion drachmas, up 23.0 percent from the same period of last year, private EFG Eurobank Ergasias said in a statement.

The bank said that a rise in revenue from higher market shares and growth in transactions had more than offset a drop in revenue from commissions stemming from the weak performance of the Athens Stock Exchange.

The completion of merger proceedings in the current financial year would allow the group to benefit from synergies of cost and revenue, which would become more tangible from the second half of the year, but chiefly from 2002, the statement said.

Also in the first quarter, lending increased by 27 percent to total 2.9 trillion drachmas, and assets increased by 17 percent to 6.3 trillion drachmas, it added.

[05] Weather Forecast-Friday

Scattered cloud is forecast throughout the country on Friday, turning to showers or storms in parts of the mainland and Ionian from evening. Winds northeasterly, light to moderate, turning strong in the south. Temperatures on the northern mainland will range from 8C to 18C; on the rest of the mainland from 11C to 23C; and in the south from 14C to 22C. Scattered cloud in Athens with temperatures between 11C and 23C. Same in Thessaloniki with temperatures from 11C to 18C.

[06] ASE-close

Equity prices ended mixed to lower in thin trading conditions on the Athens Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Traders said selling of blue chip stocks by foreign institutional investors reversed an initial recovery trend in the market, although the telecommunications sector was strong. Investors remained on the sidelines awaiting developments on the implementation of a margin account trading system, while the Greek bourse closed slightly before a decision by the European Central Bank to cut eurozone interest rates by 25 basis points.

The general index ended 0.05 percent lower at 3,112.90 points, off the day's highs of 3,154.93 points, with turnover a low 157.28 million euros, or 53.59 billion drachmas.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks ended 0.41 percent lower at 1,820.84 points, and the FTSE/ASE 40 index rose 0.20 percent to 357.01 points.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks ended at 306.26 points, off 0.03 percent.

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