Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-03-06

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

CONTENTS

[01] Getty Museum to return artifacts this month

[02] S&P affirms Greek credit rating

[01] Getty Museum to return artifacts this month

They are a 4th century B.C. gold funerary wreath from the northern Greek province of Macedonia and an archaic-era statue of a young woman, or 'kore', made of Parian (the island of Paros) marble. The agreement for their return had been announced a few months ago.

Voulgarakis said the two items will be on display at the celebrated National Archaeological Museum in Athens from March 28, at which time there will be an official ceremony for their handover and installation.

Caption: An ndated photo handed out by the Greek ministry of culture shows the marble statue of a young woman (kore) to be returned to Greece from J. Paul Getty Museum, Monday, Dec. 11, 2006. ANA-MPA/MINISTRY OF CULTURE

[02] S&P affirms Greek credit rating

In a commentary entitled "Without Further Structural Expenditure Reforms, Greek Fiscal Respite Is Only Temporary," S&P analyst Trevor Cullinan noted that "the Greek government continues to adhere to a programme of gradual fiscal consolidation, having reduced the general government deficit to less than 3.0 pct of GDP in 2006".

"However, this consolidation will be unsustainable over the longer term without an increased focus on primary expenditure discipline, with the majority of the fiscal adjustment since 2005 having come through a reduction of capital expenditure, non-recurring items, and savings related to debt servicing," the commentary said.

Standard & Poor's said the general government debt was expected to reach about 100 percent of GDP in 2007, down from the 112 pct prevailing on the eve of the country's entry into EMU in 2000.

"These modest improvements in public finances have come about notwithstanding the fact that the Greek economy nominally expanded at an annual average of 8.0 pct since 2000, with average real growth of more than 4.0 pct per year, double the rate of growth in the Eurozone," it noted.

The report added that the pace of reforms has been slow despite the government's comfortable majority, while official forecasts were based on optimistic growth assumptions.

He stressed that the ratings could be raised if structural budgetary improvements were to lead to a clearly discernible trend towards general government balance or to a surplus by the end of the decade and if the public debt rate were to decrease over the medium term, in accordance with the government's own projections, as included in the Greek Stability and Growth Programme.

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