The European Central Bank won’t hesitate to hike interest rates if it observes second-round effects on inflation, said European Central Bank governing council member Nicholas Garganas yesterday, echoing other ECB policymakers. “We will not hesitate to raise interest rates if we see that there are second-round effects on inflation,” he told the Greek Parliament’s economic committee, where he presented a Greek central bank interim report. (Reuters)

Raphail Moysis, president and CEO of the Public Gas Corporation, resigned yesterday from the governing board of the Public Power Corporation (PPC), without any reasons cited. PPC announced only that his replacement would be selected in the board’s next meeting. Industry sources, however, attributed the resignation to Moysis’s bad relations with PPC President Yiannis Palaiokrassas, particularly after the recent disagreement on the selection of new general directors.

Aluminium frames manufacturer Aloumil Milonas is ranked as the 25th fastest-growing medium-size European firm in a list of 500. The survey “Europe 500 2005,” published by the “Europe 500 — Entrepreneurs for Growth” organization, includes 13 Greek companies which created 3,287 new jobs in the last three years. Their average annual turnover grew by 18 percent, against a European average of 14 percent. All 500 companies created about 130,000 jobs.

Telecoms operator Q-Telecom, a unit of IT group Info-Quest, yesterday reported a 6 percent quarterly rise in subscribers in the third quarter to 982,744, of whom 907,886 are in mobile telephony. Parent Info-Quest has accepted a 325-million-euro ($390 million) binding bid for Q-Telecom, the fourth Greek mobile operator by market share, from private equity firms Texas Pacific Group (TPG) and Apax Partners, which also control mobile operator TIM Hellas. Fitch Ratings said yesterday that the proposed acquisition could significantly enhance TIM Hellas’s competitive position as the third mobile operator in the Greek market.

Listed publishers Pegasus and Lambrakis have finalized a deal for a joint venture in the publishing of a small ads weekly newspaper, Nees Angelies.

BusinessWeek magazine and CASH Media Group, a publishing company based in Sofia, yesterday announced an agreement to publish a Bulgarian-language weekly edition of BusinessWeek. The first issue is scheduled for launch in January 2006.