Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 13-04-05

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

CONTENTS

[01] FM Avramopoulos concludes visit to Croatia

[02] Two new metro stations inaugurated

[03] Piraeus port more than doubled container traffic in last three years

[01] FM Avramopoulos concludes visit to Croatia

According to a Foreign Ministry statement, Pusic said she and Avramopoulos discussed three main issues - improving relations between the two countries, examining the possibility of collaborating on the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project carrying natural gas from Azerbaijan to Italy and Croatia through Greece, and collaboration between the two countries in sectors like culture, tourism and the shipping industry.

"Greece will assume the presidency of the European Union early in 2014," Vesic said, "during which the issues of Southeastern Europe will be one of the top priorities in the EU agenda."

Avramopoulos responded that the Balkans had suffered a lot in the past, "but we must leave our past behind us; our common European future should guide us from now on."

He also said that the Schengen Treaty, which Greece follows but Croatia is not yet member to, "must become more flexible because certain of its elements are very vague and shut doors that could be important to tourism. And as you know," he told the press, "Greece is an economy and country focused on tourism."

[02] Two new metro stations inaugurated

Two new stations of the Athens metro were inaugurated on Friday by Development Minister Costis Hatzidakis.

The two stations, Anthoupoli and Peristeri Town Hall, will open to the public on Saturday and are expected to facilitate 50,000 commuters daily.

According to Hatzidakis, the metro extension to Helliniko will be ready in July and will include four stations, while in autumn the station in Haidari will be also ready.

Moreover, Hatzidakis said that the works in the highways will 'unfreeze' and the construction sites will re-operate soon.

The two-year delay in the completion of the metro extensions and station was attributed to the delay in the signing of the contract with Siemens that was responsible for the metro sign posts and lighting.

[03] Piraeus port more than doubled container traffic in last three years

Container traffic in Piraeus (accounting for 90 pct of traffic in the Greek market) more than doubled in the last three years to 2.7 million TEUs in 2012 from 850,000 TEUs in 2010, when container traffic in other rival ports in the Mediterranean grew by only 20 pct over the same period, the report said, adding that Greek ports absorbed 5.5 pct of container traffic in the Mediterranean last year, up from 2.0 pct in the period 2008-2010.

National Bank's analysts noted that Piraeus port has a significant room for further growth in container traffic in the future, to 2.5 million TEUs by 2015 (raising the country's market share to 7.6 pct) from 2.0 million TEUs in 2012 (6.8 pct of Mediterranean transport). This development is based on the assumption that Piraeus port's capacity will rise to 5.7 million TEUs in 2015 from 3.6 million TEUs last year, as envisaged by Cosco's business plans.

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