Athens News Agency: News in English, 00-03-28

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

CONTENTS

[01] Rau-Greece-Visit

[02] Foreign Exchange Market-Close

[03] Stiglitz-Lecture-Economy

[04] Secondary Bond Market-Close

[05] Derivatives Market-Close

[06] Foreign Exchange Rates-Wednesday

[07] Weather Forecast-Wednesday

[08] Turkey - Entry - Ban - Zana

[09] ASE-close

[10] Protests - NATO - Convoy

[01] Rau-Greece-Visit

German President Johannes Rau will officially visit Greece between April 3-5, at the invitation of Greek President Kostis Stephanopoulos. Rau will be visiting Ankara immediately afterwards.

Rau will be holding talks with President Stephanopoulos, Prime Minister Costas Simitis and leaders of Greek political parties. He will also visit Parliament and meet Parliament President Apostolos Kaklamanis, as well as the Athens Town Hall where Athens Mayor Dimitris Avramopoulos will award him the Gold Medal of the City of Athens.

[02] Foreign Exchange Market-Close

The drachma on Tuesday fell against the euro and the US dollar in the domestic foreign exchange market, and outflows totalled about 75 million euros, a minor sum, dealers said.

The central bank had sold roughly 750 million euros last week in a spate of interventions, but did not step into the market on Monday.

At the central bank's daily fixing, the euro was set at 334.350 drachmas from 334.260 drachmas a day earlier and 334.250 drachmas on Friday.

Also at the fixing, the US dollar was set at 346.350 drachmas against 343.300 drachmas in the previous session and 344.730 drachmas at the end of last week.

[03] Stiglitz-Lecture-Economy

Former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz forecast another round of ?Seattle-like? protests against globalization next month in Washington during an upcoming IMF-World Bank session.

The well-known Stanford economics professor and prolific scholar arrived in Greece this week to deliver an annual keynote lecture organised by the Andreas Papandreou Foundation in memory of the late three-time Greek premier, while he fielded questions on Tuesday at a downtown Athens press conference.

Stiglitz repeated his often-stinging criticism of World Bank policies, especially with regard to fueling the recent SE Asia economic crisis, stressing that ?insufficient regulation and premature deregulation? contributed to the collapse.

[04] Secondary Bond Market-Close

Bond prices in the domestic secondary market edged up in thin, buy-oriented trade on Tuesday with many players apparently keeping out of the market before national elections on April 9, traders said.

Little action is expected until after the polls, despite the attractiveness of Greek paper, including the 20-year bond, the traders said.

[05] Derivatives Market-Close

Equity futures finished lower on Tuesday roughly tracking the two indices on which they are based.

The FTSE/ASE 20 closed 0.17 percent higher, and the FTSE/ASE 40 ended 2.54 percent down.

Turnover was 9.4 billion drachmas from just over 8.0 billion drachmas a day earlier.

[06] Foreign Exchange Rates-Wednesday

Following are indicative foreign exchange buying rates for commercial banks released by the central bank for the next working day.

Wednesday's rates (buying)

Euro 331.675

U.S. dollar 343.579

[07] Weather Forecast-Wednesday

Scattered cloud is forecast throughout the country on Wednesday, turning to rain in the Ionian and mainland Greece. Many areas will be misty, especially in the early morning.

[08] Turkey - Entry - Ban - Zana

ISTANBUL (ANA � A. Kourkoulas) -- Political circles in the Turkish capital on Monday attributed the recent newspaper publication of a list allegedly banning the entrance of 58 foreign prominent figures, including nine Greeks, as a ?reaction? by conservative elements within the Turkish state.

The same circles tied the issue to the case of imprisoned ex-deputy Leila Zana, elected with the subsequently outlawed Kurdish Democratic Party.

The Turkish government had initially forbidden visits by members of a joint EU-Turkey parliamentary committee to Zana, leading to a postponement of two committee sessions � a development viewed as resulting in a policy reversal by Ankara over such visits.

Athens over the past few days has called for an immediate clarification by Ankara on whether the Turkish government has compiled such a 'personae non gratae' list. According to a report in the Turkish mass daily �Sabah� on Saturday, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Christodoulos and several Greek MPs are banned from entering Turkey.

[09] ASE-close

A wave of technical buying in blue chip stocks during the last half hour of trade helped equity prices to recoup a big part of their early sharp losses on the Athens Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

The wave of late buying also helped in the improvement of turnover which totalled 200.28 billion drachmas, sharply up from Monday's record low levels.

Once again, smaller capitalisation stocks came under heavy pressure continuing their free-fall decline.

The general index ended at 4,664.01 points, down 0.25 percent, after moving in a 160-point range during the session with a day's high of 4,698.98 and a low of 4,535.57 points.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks ended at 2,662.88 points, up 0.17 percent while the FTSE/ASE 40 index fell 2.54 percent to 653.49 points.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks plunged 7.18 percent to end at 738.37 points.

[10] Protests - NATO - Convoy

Minor scuffles were reported in the northern Greek port of Thessaloniki on Tuesday afternoon when about 100 Communist Party of Greece (KKE) supporters attempted to block the passage of a NATO convoy headed for strife-ridden Kosovo.

Protesters threw rocks and sticks at the convoy of military vehicles comprised of French and Italian units of KFOR, while several others were spray-painted with anti-NATO slogans. According to reports, the convoy was delayed for about two hours before finally heading for the border with Greece�s land-locked northern neighbor, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

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