Main Greek telecoms provider OTE has cut prices on high-speed lines leased to its rivals in a bid to expand the broadband market, which has the lowest penetration in Europe. Annual rental charges for the lines, which are normally used for broadband services by fixed-line carriers and Internet service providers, will be cheaper by 2.4 to 57.9 percent starting April 3, OTE said yesterday. “The new discounts on high-speed leased lines significantly reduce the cost of high-speed data transfer, thus contributing to the development of broadband in Greece,” it added. The country’s largest telecoms operator is keen to increase the take-up of high-speed broadband ADSL services to offset the erosion of its core voice traffic as users migrate to other carriers and to mobile telephony companies. At about 2 percent, Greece’s ADSL penetration is the lowest in Europe, which has an average of 29 percent. Analysts expect penetration to rise to 25 percent by 2010. The government plans to invest 184 million euros this year to boost broadband use to 7 percent of the population by 2008. (Reuters)

Telecoms operator and Internet service provider Forthnet said yesterday Crete-based shareholder Foundation for Research and Technology (ITE) had cut its stake to 11.7 percent from 20.3 percent. ITE sold 1.475 million shares at 9.62 euros per share to foreign institutional investors on Tuesday, Forthnet said in a stock-market filing. The sale netted ITE 14.2 million euros. Forthnet did not provide details on the share sale. Icelandic venture capital firm Novator holds a 34.33 percent stake and British fund Cycladic Catalyst Master Fund 11.94 percent. (Reuters)

The pace of Greek credit expansion eased to 15.9 percent in January from a five-year high in the previous month, with analysts expecting the deceleration to continue in the months ahead as prospects of interest rate hikes weigh. Credit growth had accelerated by an annual 16.4 percent clip in December on the back of strong home loan borrowing in anticipation of planned real estate tax changes going into effect as of January this year. (Reuters)

The volume of Greek government debt traded on the central bank’s electronic system (HDAT) eased a touch to 64.4 billion euros ($78.9 billion) in March from 64.9 billion a month earlier, the Bank of Greece said yesterday. Daily average turnover fell to 2.93 billion euros from 3.25 billion in February. The central bank said investor interest mainly focused on the long end of the yield curve, particularly paper with remaining maturities of between seven and 15 years, which absorbed 70 percent of overall volume. Greek government paper yields rose considerably in March, in line with the rest of the eurozone markets.