Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-04-11

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

CONTENTS

[01] Fraport Greece officially takes over control of 14 regional airports

[02] Naxos seeks to play leading role in sports tourism

[03] Greek enterprises returned to profitability in 2015, ICAP survey

[01] Fraport Greece officially takes over control of 14 regional airports

The first flight, under the control of Fraport, was made by Ryannair at 00.20 after midnight which took off from the Athens airport with destination to Santorini.

The process began early on Monday and the whole operation was coordinated by the management and the heads of operations of Fraport Greece from the modern command center in Kalogreza.

The company took over the operation, maintenance and development of 14 airports for the next 40 years and plans to invest more than 1.4 billion euros during this period. The 14 airports are Aktion, Chania, Kavala, Corfu, Kos, Mytilene, Mykonos, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini, Skiathos, Thessaloniki and Zakynthos. Fraport Greece plans to build five new terminal stations at the airports of Thessaloniki, Corfu, Cephalonia, Kos and Mytilene in the first four years and to renovate all landing facilities, terminals and infrastructure in all airports.

[02] Naxos seeks to play leading role in sports tourism

"Tourist organisations of the island and the region of Southern Aegean have welcome the initiative," Christina Kouri, a spokesperson of the organising company said adding that hotel owners have offered their rooms in order to meet the accommodation needs during the event.

More than 200 persons have expressed interest, Kouri noted. Some parallel events have also been planned aiming to familiarise the visitors with the culture and archaeological sites of the island.

The events will start on April 29 and wrap up on May 1.

Naxos Trail includes:

Apollon Race â€' 25km

The main route has the name of God Apollo who, according to mythology, was worship in three different places in Naxos.

Dionisos Race â€' 10.8km

The route is dedicated to the God Dionysus. According to legend, he grew up and lived on Naxos and was raised in the "bad cave" of Koronos. He married Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, whom he met and fell in love in Naxos.

[03] Greek enterprises returned to profitability in 2015, ICAP survey

Despite adverse conditions prevailing in the market, Greek companies showed a remarkable resistance and managed to reverse a continuing declining trend of the last few years.

Nikitas Constantellos, chairman and CEO in ICAP Group, said: "2015 was a landmark year that signalled an impressive return to profitabiity of enterprises (non-financial sector) after a prolonged period of accumulated losses. In the first quarter of 2017, the market remained in a climate of uncertainty and the economy remained vulnerable because of prolonged negotiations between the country and its creditors, a development that froze economic activity. It is imperative to conclude review procedures to help the economy return to economic stability course, restoring liquidity and smooth flow of funding in the market, allowing Greek companies to grow, contributing to economic recovery and a final exit from the crisis".

The survey, based on an analysis of balance sheets from 15,771 enterprises -excluding the financial sector- showed that turnover fell 2.8 pct to 128 billion euros in 2015. The biggest decline was recorded in the manufacturing sector (-8.2 pct) and the mining sector (-5.8 pct), while hotel/restaurants and farm-fishing recorded the biggest increase in sales (4.1 pct and 3.1 pct, respectively).

Gross earnings grew 8.9 pct to 27.1 billion euros in 2015, while gross profit margin grew to 21.2 pct from 18.9 pct in 2014. Operating earnings jumped 66.3 pct, pre tax earnings amounted 2.1 billion euros. The majority of the companies in the survey (62.3 pct) were profitable in 2015.

A total of 1,653 enterprises turned from loss-making in 2014 to profitable in 2015, while 8,172 enterprises were profitable in the two-year period.

Hotel/restaurants and transport/communications recorded the highest gross profit margin in 2015.

Accumulated assets totaled 208.9 billion euros in 2015, up one percentage point from the previous year, whle liabilities grew 1.6 pct.

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