Athens News Agency: News in English, 11-01-05

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

CONTENTS

[01] PM trips to France, Turkey

[02] Greece will weather the debt crisis

[03] Dismembered body discovered in landfill

[04] ASE opening: Decline

[01] PM trips to France, Turkey

In Erzurum, Papandreou will be accompanied by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will address the meeting of Turkey's top diplomatic corps.

The third annual Turkish ambassadorsâ conference, entitled "Visionary Diplomacy: Global and Regional Order from Turkeyâs Perspective", will be chaired by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and will be attended by Turkish diplomats serving abroad and at the country's foreign ministry.

The week-long session opened in Ankara on Monday and will continue in Erzurum.

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[02] Greece will weather the debt crisis

In an interview with Reuters news agency released Tuesday, the Greek FinMin said the country has cut its debt and has met all obligations towards the IMF and the European Union in return for a 110-billion-euros bailout, and noted that the government was also promoting structural reforms.

He also denied reports that Greece was in talks with debt holders for extending the repayment period of the countryâs existing debt.

"There are no such talks," Papaconstantinou said, dismissing reports that Greece was in talks with creditor banks. "This would not help Greece, the Greek economy, Greek banks, Greek citizens or the European problem," he noted.

He stressed that Greece was making steady progress on cutting its fiscal deficit and was promoting unpopular reforms to ensure payment of the fourth tranche of a troika loan, worth 15 billion euros in March.

"We finished 2010 on target, with reforms meeting the time schedule," Papaconstantinou said, adding that there was no reason to doubt for the next tranche, or any other tranche of the loan, "as long as we do our job correctly".

He said privatisation proceeds were expected to total 1.0 billion euros this year, with an additional six billion euros expected in 2012-2013, including airports, public sector enterprises, real estate property and gaming. "We will use a very flexible methodology. We have a revenue target but was more important was to have the expertise and the dynamism that private investments would bring to these sectors. He reiterated that Greece would seek a return to capital markets this year, depending on market conditions, along with the issuance of a Diaspora bond loan to Greeks living abroad.

Papaconstantinou said talks with China over the purchase of Greek state bonds were progressing, but declined to say anything more specific over the amount or the time of the deal. He noted that Greece would like an extension of repaying its IMF/EU loans to cover not only outstanding tranches but those already paid. The European Commission was positive over this request but we have to wait for Eurogroupâs final decisions, Papaconstantinou said.

Additionally, he sounded optimistic that the European Union would reach an agreement over joint issuance of euro bonds.

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[03] Dismembered body discovered in landfill

The victim is believed to be of Asian descent, but no further details were immediately available.

Police are investigating the incident.

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[04] ASE opening: Decline

Individual sector indices were moving downward, with the biggest gains Telecoms, up 1.27 percent, and Chemicals, up 0.83 percent.

The biggest losses were in Mass Media, down 7.10 percent, and Construction, down 2.16 percent.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavily traded stocks was down 0.86 percent, the FTSE/ASE MID 40 index was down 0.43 percent, and the FTSE/ASE-80 small cap index was down 0.94 percent.

Of the stocks traded, 10 were up, 59 were down, and 15 were unchanged.

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