The General Confederation of Greek Labor (GSEE) has demanded that the minimum wage be increased 10 percent this year to offset the decline in buying power caused by higher energy prices. It wants the benchmark minimum monthly wage, applicable to unmarried employees with no previous work experience, to rise by “about 10 percent” from 658 euros currently, union spokesman Stathis Anestis said yesterday in a telephone interview. “We are concentrating our attention on the rising price of oil that makes it impossible for low-wage earners to cope,” GSEE said in an e-mailed letter addressed to the Federation of Greek Enterprises (SEV) yesterday. The letter invites SEV to open talks on a national 2008 labor agreement. (Bloomberg)

NICOSIA (Reuters) – Cyprus’s direct tax revenues in January to November increased by 43 percent year-on-year to 1.06 billion Cyprus pounds (US$2.65 billion), the Inland Revenue department said yesterday. The increase is mainly attributed to increased revenues from capital gains tax, which rose to 247.1 million Cyprus pounds, or by 142 percent year-on-year. Revenues from corporate tax increased in January to November to 336 million Cyprus pounds – up 39 percent – and from employees’ income tax to 213.4 million, or by 12 percent, compared to the respective period of 2006.

Turkish electricity prices will rise by as much as 20 percent this year, more than the figures previously announced by the government, the energy regulator said. Households will pay 20 percent more and manufacturers will pay 15 percent more for power this year once additional charges for distribution and sales are adjusted for inflation, Nafiz Kaya, a spokesman for the Ankara-based energy-markets regulator, said in a telephone interview yesterday. (Bloomberg)

Environmental Energy Resources (EER), a subsidiary of Israeli investment company Shrem Fudim Kelner Co, said it had agreed to build a waste treatment facility in Romania for $30 million. EER will build the plant under a 25-year agreement, the company said in a statement. “The company expects to treat some 30,000 tons of waste, and no less than 80 tons a day for about 150 euros per ton,” Moshe Stern, president at EER said. (Reuters)

Listed retailer Plaisio will be opening a new superstore in Thessaloniki next Thursday, January 10, in the presence of Macedonia and Thrace Minister Margaritis Tzimas and Deputy Minister for Development Stavros Kalafatis. It is a four-story building covering a total area of 1,700 square meters in the district of Nea Efkarpia, off the Thessaloniki ring road.