Tourism Development Minister Fanni Palli-Petralia is today officially opening the Greek stand at the ITM Intourmarket Moscow tourism and travel exhibition, which begins today and lasts until Saturday, with Greece as the honored country. After the signing of the agreement for the Greek-Russian-Bulgarian oil pipeline linking Burgas with Alexandroupolis, Greece is expecting a rise in tourism from Russia, with authorities expecting 250,000 Russians to visit in 2007, up 30 percent from last year.

Intralot, the world’s second-largest lottery systems supplier, said yesterday it had successfully completed an IT lottery project in New Zealand. Intralot, which is also the world’s largest sports betting operator, said its New Zealand subsidiary had connected 20,256 gaming machines and 1,000 jackpot controllers to a new electronic system which monitors all video slot machines in the country. Via the new system, the New Zealand government can monitor all bets via video slot machine and crack down on illegal betting. (Reuters)

The Turkish central government budget showed a primary surplus of 2.890 billion lira (1.56 billion euros) in February, down from 4.259 billion lira last year, the Finance Ministry said in a statement yesterday. The budget deficit was 2.077 billion lira, down 17 percent from 2.504 billion lira in February of last year. Turkey targets a 36.116-billion-lira central budget primary surplus and 16.83-billion-lira budget deficit for 2007. The primary budget surplus excludes interest payments on government debt. (Reuters)

Greek winemakers are planning an extensive program to promote their products in the massive markets of the USA, Canada, Russia and China. The National Intrerprofessional Organization of Vine and Wine (EDOAO) will realize a three-year, 3.5-million-euro program (January 2007-December 2009) to advertise Greek wine, half funded by the EU.

Technical Olympic USA (TOUSA), a subsidiary of Greek construction group Technical Olympic, posted losses of $201.2 million in 2006, against net profits of $218 million in 2005, the company announced. The losses are attributed to the crumbling of the “Transeastern” consortium, set up to build houses in Florida.