Athens News Agency: News in English, 00-07-21

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

CONTENTS

[01] Sports - Athens-Tennis-Davis Cup

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates-Monday

[03] Weather Forecast-Saturday

[04] OTEnet-network-improvement

[05] Lambrakis Press-Cyprus deal

[06] National Insurance-results

[07] Bond auction-announcement

[08] ASE-close

[01] Sports - Athens-Tennis-Davis Cup

Greece and Norway have clinched one win each on Friday's first day of the 2nd division of the Euro-African Zone of the Davis Cup being held in Athens.

Greece's Solon Peppas easily beat Norway's Helke Kol by 3-0 sets (6-4, 6-4, 6-3).

But the second game was a thriller and lasted more than three-and-half hours. Norwegian Yian Fronte-Andersen overcame Greece's Vassilis Mazarakis by 3-2 sets (6-3, 6-4, 6-7, 2-6, 6-4).

On Saturday, the doubles will take place with Costas Economidis and Tassos Vassiliadis playing against Kohl and Stian Boretti (No. 1304). The matches will be concluded on Sunday with Peppas playing against Andersen (unless the Norwegian athlete's injury does not allow him to play again) and Mazarakis against Kohl.

If the Greek team defeats Norway it will play against the winner of the Slovenia-Poland match for a place in the Euro-African Zone's first division for the first time in its history.

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates-Monday

Following are indicative rates released by the central bank for the next working day.

Mondays rates (buying)

Euro 334.294

U.S. dollar 357.517

German mark 170.922

[03] Weather Forecast-Saturday

Scattered cloud, sunshine and showers are forecast throughout the country on Saturday. Winds northerly, moderate to strong, turning very strong in the Aegean.

[04] OTEnet-network-improvement

OTEnet, a subsidiary of Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation, on Friday announced speedier access to the Internet by increasing the total capacity of its international ground interconnect circuit network to 80 Mbps, excluding the 4Mbps international satellite interconnecting services.

The new service will offer OTEnet's customers a significant comparative advantage with easy access to the Internet on a 24-hour basis.

[05] Lambrakis Press-Cyprus deal

Lambrakis Press Organisation on Friday announced a wide-range cooperation agreement with Fileleftheros Publishing Group in Cyprus.

The deal envisages cooperation in publishing and Internet. Under the deal Fileleftheros will have exclusive publishing rights of Lambrakis' magazines. The two companies plan to expand their cooperation with joint publications in the future both in the Greek and Cypriot markets.

The deal also envisages creation of a joint company to set up a new Internet portal in Cyprus offering e-commerce services.

Lambrakis and Fileleftheros also plan to build a new joint printing unit in Cyprus.

[06] National Insurance-results

National Insurance, a member of National Bank of Greece Group, on Friday announced a 92.8 percent jump its its consolidated pre-tax profits for the first half of 2000 to 8.7 billion drachmas, from 4.5 billion the same period last year.

Insurance activities' revenues totalled 90.1 billion drachmas in the January-June period from 81.8 bln last year, for an increase of 10.2 percent, reflecting a 22.4 percent rise in damage insurance premiums and a 4.2 percent rise in life insurance premiums.

Revenues from investment activities totalled 17 billion drachmas, up 1.8 percent from last year.

[07] Bond auction-announcement

Greece's Public Debt Management Organisation on Friday announced it will auction a 12-month treasury bills issue, worth 40 billion drachmas, next Tuesday, July 25.

Settlement date was set Friday 28, July. The organisation pays a commission of 0.45 percent.

[08] ASE-close

Equity prices ended the last trading session of the week with small losses on the Athens Stock Exchange on Friday as a combination of tight liquidity and lack of fresh incentives kept the market rangebound.

Shares in the Leasing and Construction sector scored gains while shares in the Miscellaneous sector came under pressure to end lower.

Banks also fell as the market ignored increased profitability in National Bank of Greece and ETEBA in the first half of the year.

The general index ended 0.22 percent lower at 4,054.21 points, but it recorded a 1.19 percent gain on the week. Turnover was a low 63 billion drachmas.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks ended at 2,265.47 points, off 0.12 percent and the FTSE/ASE 40 index rose 0.37 percent to 577.36 points.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks ended at 750.74 points, off 0.50 percent.

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