Athens News Agency: News in English, 00-07-20

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

CONTENTS

[01] Hellenic Telecoms-foreign investments

[01] Hellenic Telecoms-foreign investments

Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation expects profits to exceed one billion drachmas by 2003 from its expansion in the Balkans while it awaits the outcome of its joint bid with KPN Netherlands to acquire a majority stake in Bulgarian Telecommunications Organisation BTC.

Hellenic Telecoms' board said on Thursday that there no essential differences with the Bulgarian side and attributed any reactions to the takeover deal in the neighbouring country to trade unions' policy.

George Skarpelis, Hellenic Telecoms' deputy chief executive, said that the organisation was planning to expand in new services, such as cable TV and Internet, in countries where it has already expanded.

He said that the organisation would soon begin to see profits from its investments abroad based on positive forecasts made by international banks and consulting firms over the economic prospects of these countries.

Skarpelis said the organisation expected its pre-tax profits to exceed 700 million US dollars by 2003 from its Romanian investment in ROM-Telecom. Hellenic Telecoms' investments are expected to total 2.3 billion dollars.

In Armenia, the organisation expects profits to exceed 77 million US dollars by 2003 and the number of mobile telephony users to exceed 70,000 in the country. Armetel, reported profits of 4.2 million dollars in the first quarter of 2000 and Hellenic Telecoms has installed 700,000 new telephone lines.

The organisation decided to launch a new business plan for its investment in Serbia Telecom.

Hellenic Telecoms said that its expansion in foreign markets would continue beyond the Balkan region into the rest of Europe.

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