Athens News Agency: News in English, 10-10-20

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

CONTENTS

[01] Greece and China sign tourist cooperation protocol

[02] FinMin: No additional measures

[03] Astakos project cancelled

[04] Intâl seminar on Geoparks

[05] Athens Newspaper Headlines

[01] Greece and China sign tourist cooperation protocol

The two sides agreed, among other things, to encourage the start of direct air linkage between the two countries and to strengthen on both sides cooperation between tourist businessmen, cultural agencies and journalistic missions.

The Chinese delegation showed particular interest in participation in the "Cultures Crossroads 2013" in Thessaloniki, where China will be the theme country and committed itself to backing the institution with a considerable presence.

Special reference was made to the Greek state's considerable efforts to facilitate Chinese visitors during the visa issuing process.

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[02] FinMin: No additional measures

Speaking to reporters after an Ecofin meeting in Luxembourg, the Greek minister said a Eurogroup meeting on Monday discussed the condition of Eurozone's economies, including Greece, and noted the positive climate prevailing both in the European Commission and the European Central Bank, which jointly welcomed the government's efforts to restructure the Greek economy. "These efforts are acknowledged by markets," Papaconstantinou said, while he underlined the very low interest rate (3.75 pct) of a three-month Treasury bills auction.

He underlined that an upward revision of Greek statistics was expected while he noted that cooperation between the Community and Greek statistics services was fully satisfactory, as acknowledged by Brussels. He added that the biggest problem currently was revising the fiscal condition of the country in the period 2006-2009 and integrating debt piled by loss-making public sector enterprises. Papaconstantinou said he expected this procedure to be completed by the end of the week and that Eurostat would be able to publish a final report by mid-November, ahead of a vote in Parliament of a state budget for 2011. He said the government's main goal was to have a full certification of statistics by Eurostat, an issue of great significance to markets.

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[03] Astakos project cancelled

The decision was notified to the Greek side after a letter sent by the company to Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Spyros Kouvelis, stating that the Emirate was withdrawing its interest in participating in the consortium. The letter noted that the investors from Qatar were open to other energy cooperations.

The investment was a private deal, between companies, in which the Greek state had not participation beyond facilitating licensing procedures to speed-up the investment, budgeted at around 2.5 billion euros. The government, the sources said, did everything in its power to facilitate the investment.

This development is not affecting, in any way, a bilateral deal signed between Greece and Qatar in New York last month. A commission set-up following the memorandum of cooperation between the two countries will convene in the next two to three weeks.

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[04] Intâl seminar on Geoparks

The seminar was taught by distinguished university professors, directors of Geoparks, museums and world heritage monuments and was attended by 35 scientists from 13 countries.

The event took place on Oct. 1-6 in parallel with the 9th European Geoparks Conference and was organized by the University of the Aegean / Department of Geography and the Natural History Museum of the Lesvos Petrified Forest with the support of the Global UNESCO Network of Geoparks and the European Geoparks Network.

The 5th International Intensive Course on Geoparks will be held on Lesvos in Sept. 2011.

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[05] Athens Newspaper Headlines

Government's measures to boost employment, the cancellation of Qatari investment in Astakos energy project, the fines for tax evasion and speculation of additional measures, mostly dominated the headlines on Wednesday in Athens' newspapers

ADESMEFTOS TYPOS: "Government will finance employers' social security contributions to avoid lay-offs".

APOGEVMATINI: "Pain-killer measures against the 'monster' of unemployment"

AVGHI: "The Memorandum went bankrupt - Welcome to the new Memorandum!"

AVRIANI: "MIG Vice President Andreas Vgenopoulos uncovered the corrupt system".

ELEFTHEROS: "Prime Minister George Papandreou is fooling everybody - All his programmes are inapplicable".

ELEFTHEROS TYPOS: "FAST (track)...FIASCO with Qatar".

ELEFTHEROTYPIA: "Qatar withdrew from Astakos investment".

ETHNOS: "Pupils, parents and teachers object to the new university entry registration form".

IMERISSIA: "Subsidy on contributions to avert the lay-offs storm".

KATHIMERINI: "Public sector the target of new cutbacks".

LOGOS: "Government lays the carpet for new measures".

NAFTEMPORIKI: "2.5 billion euros in programmes to safeguard 668,000 job positions".

NIKI: "Reforms to bring new cutbacks in salaries".

RIZOSPASTIS: "Protection for the unemployed a fraud'.

TA NEA: "EU to impose huge fines for excessive benefits to farmers".

ÔÏ ÂÇÌÁ: "Ratting by relatives, neighbors, on tax evasion".

VRADYNI: "Mockery towards enterprises and unemployed'.

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