Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 15-10-04

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

CONTENTS

[01] PM Tsipras: Greece must fundamentally change in the next four years

[02] ND election committee accepts Adonis Georgiadis' candidacy

[03] Greek lenders will not need the full 25 bln euros for their recapitalization - bank association chief

[04] Russian ambassador Maslov underlines interest in strengthening economic relations with Greece

[01] PM Tsipras: Greece must fundamentally change in the next four years

The government's main target, stressed Tsipras, is to implement all those provided in the agreement with the lenders in order the discussion for the debt to open. Moreover, he noted that the government will implement the programme approved by SYRIZA for the relief of the weaker adding that the country must leave from the supervision as soon as possible and to restore the access to the international markets.

Referring to his participation in the UN general assembly, Tsipras said that the first aim was the internationalisation of the Greek debt issue.

The debt issue is not simply an issue of figures, because "the return to growth and to the social and economic stability largely depends on its solution".

"Our second aim was to open, on our part, the issue of the refugees flow" said Tsipras noting that Europe must prove its open humanitarian face to this crisis and to shut the door to the extreme right, to the racism and to the xenophobia

[02] ND election committee accepts Adonis Georgiadis' candidacy

The election committee on Friday afternoon rejected MP Georgiadis' candidacy because he submitted it with a few minutes delay.

The committee reconvened on Saturday morning to reconsider its decision following disapproving comments from the other three contenders and former ND leader Antonis Samaras who called the committee's decision "wrong and traumatic for ND'.

On Friday, the committee had approved the candidacies of current ND leader Evangelos Meimarakis, MP Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the governor of the region of Central Macedonia Apostolos Tzitzikostas.

[03] Greek lenders will not need the full 25 bln euros for their recapitalization - bank association chief

In an interview with "Economic Review" magazine, Katseli said that a recapitalization process –a responsibility of the European Central Bank- was progressing rapidly with completion of evaluating the quality of loan portfolios. "With the completion of stress tests the capital needs of each bank will be determined. This process will be completed within 2015," the Greek banker said.

  "Our assessment is that banks will not need the sum of 25 billion euros envisaged in the agreement. The exact sum to be needed, will arise based on the extreme forecasts to be made by ECB," Katseli said, adding that "systemic banks are competing against each other over which will offer the most attractive loan rescheduling program. This is significant to lighten the burden of borrowers and improving the quality of banks' loan portfolio. Of course, further initiatives are needed to deal with the non-performing loans problem. I personally believe that banks can handle satisfactory the problem with consumer and mortgage loans, but a coordinated collective action was necessary to efficiently manage non performing syndicated business loans".

  Katseli said that political stability was a necessary condition to restoring confidence and credibility of the banking system and noted that banks should take initiatives towards building confidence, transparency and credibility.  

[04] Russian ambassador Maslov underlines interest in strengthening economic relations with Greece

Regarding the Greek Stream pipeline work, Maslov estimated that consultations will resume soon adding that the first step should be the setting up of a special purpose joint venture that will undertake the construction of the project. He also noted that Greece can use the profits to meet its loan obligations.

The Russian Ambassador categorically denied reports that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had asked for economic help from the Russian government and cleared out that the discussion had to do with possible cooperation on the creation of a major profitable work.

Moreover, he proposed the development of theme tourism to boost tourist arrivals from Russia.

The Russian ambassador also proposed the creation of joint Greek-Russian manufacturing enterprises and the increase of Greek exports not subject to Moscow's countermeasures to the EU in order to counterbalance the reduction of Greek exports to Russia.

The full interview is available for subscribers at ANA-MPA website.

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