Athens News Agency: News in English, 10-10-05

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

CONTENTS

[01] Greek export, business figures for Chinese market

[02] Cycladic Art Museum exhibition on 'Lost World of Old Europe'

[03] Gov't on OSE reforms

[04] Stocks end 0.97% higher

[01] Greek export, business figures for Chinese market

The figures were released in the wake of a high-profile visit to Greece over the weekend by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who headed up a sizable Chinese delegation, with Athens the first stop on its European itinerary. The visit also generated international headlines due to Beijing's pledge to continue purchasing Greek state bonds, a decision to establish a five-billion-dollar shipbuilding fund for Greek shipowners choosing Chinese manufacturers (ANA-MPA) as well as the Chinese side's interest in further direct investments in the east Mediterranean country, where Chinese multinational Cosco already operates the Piraeus container port. (ANA-MPA)

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[02] Cycladic Art Museum exhibition on 'Lost World of Old Europe'

Entitled "The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 B.C." the exhibition will be inaugurated by Deputy Foreign Minister Spyros Kouvelis on Wednesday evening.

Organised by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University in collaboration with the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest and with the participation of the Varna Regional Museum of History in Bulgaria and the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova in Chisinau, the exhibition brings together more than 200 Neolithic artifacts owned by 22 museums in Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova. (ANA-MPA)

Parallel with the main exhibition, the Museum of Cycladic Art and the ministry of culture and tourism have organised a second exhibition on "The relations between Neolithic Greece and the Balkans" presented alongside the first for comparative reasons. This includes 90 exhibits from Greek Neolithic sites of the same period and explores the similarities and differences between Greece and the Balkans during the 5th and 4th millenniums BC.

The organisers explore a little-known period of human history, noting that the area of southeastern Europe had seen the growth of highly sophisticated societies with advanced technology that disappeared abruptly and mysteriously at around 4000 B.C. for reasons as yet unknown.

Among the most impressive of the exhibits are remarkably modern-looking figurines with human form, some excellent quality, brightly coloured ceramic vases, various metal objects and the world's largest single store of Neolithic gold objects found in an ancient cemetery in Varna.

Goulandris Foundation president Sandra Marinopoulou stressed in a press conference on Tuesday that visitors to the exhibition will gain a fascinating insight into the history of SE Europe 7,000 years ago.

According to Cycladic Art Museum Director Nikolaos Stambolidis, Greece's closest neighbours were "participants" in the cultural product arising from this part of the world from the Neolithic period and onward.

"These two exhibitions come to shed light on the rich past of a region around the Danube and the northwestern coast of the Black Sea during the 3rd and 4th pre-Christian millennia. (ANA-MPA) This exhibition presents a forgotten part [of history] that we must remember without borders but only on geographic terms," he noted.

According to Dr. Dragomir Nicolae Popovici of the National History Museum of Romania, it also marked the first time that such an exhibition "that is a major chapter of European history" was organised, while Dr. Aleksander Minchev of the Varna Archaeological Museum Ancient Art department stressed that it was a chance to view "the birth of European culture". (ANA-MPA)

The parallel exhibitions are taking place under the aegis of the Greek foreign ministry as part of its presidency of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) organisation and will run until January 10, 2011. (ANA-MPA)

Caption: A clay head of an idol discovered at the Dikli Tas site in northern Kavala prefecture. The artifact is dated to the later Neolithic period to Bronze-Lithic age (4800-4000 BC), on loaned from the Archaeological Museum of Philippi. ANA-MPA / STR.

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[03] Gov't on OSE reforms

In an interview with a private radio station in Athens and a day after the Cabinet approved a draft law on OSE, Infrastructure & Transport Minister Dimitris Reppas repeated that roughly 2,500 OSE employees will be transferred to other positions in the public sector with smaller salaries, while those who will continue to work for OSE will see bonuses, extra pay and other benefits cut. (ANA-MPA)

As regards the massive debts accumulated by OSE, he said the state will take over the organisation's financial obligations along with its large property holdings. A large part of OSE's 10.7-billion-euro deficit is due to the fact that investments over the past several years made in the railway network and infrastructure were funded through loans, and not through any public investment programme, he clarified.

Reppas also announced that beginning next year, the government, in compliance with the memorandum, will have to add the OSE debts to the public debt, along with other debts recorded by public utility and enterprises as well as local governments and their affiliated entities. (ANA-MPA)

All fixed assets will be exploited by Gaiose S.A., while the OSE group investment programme will be approved by a ministerial committee assigned to monitor the public utility companies.

As regards Trainose S.A., the goal is to reach a strategic alliance with a private investor who will control 49 pct of the rail operator and will take over its management. (ANA-MPA) Based on the plan, Trainose will have to pay OSE for the infrastructure it uses.

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[04] Stocks end 0.97% higher

The index ended 0.97 pct higher at 1,503.14 points, with turnover jumping to 173.418 million euros. Buying interest focused on the shares of OTE (5.29 pct), Eurobank (5.56 pct), Hellenic Postbank (5.96 pct) and MIG (4.94 pct).

The Big Cap index rose 1.48 pct, the Mid Cap index ended 1.10 pct higher and the Small Cap index ended 0.78 pct up. The Telecoms (5.29 pct) and Financial Services (5.28 pct) sectors scored the biggest percentage gains of the day, while Food (1.36 pct) and Travel (0.94 pct) suffered losses. Broadly, advancers led decliners by 102 to 61 with another 54 issues unchanged. Kloukinas (15.71 pct), Paperpack (11.36 pct) and Elfico (9.52 pct) were top gainers, while Alpha Grissin (9.84 pct), Akritas (9.46 pct) and Tegopoulos (9.09 pct) were top losers.

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