In Brief
Telekom Austria owner says it would back sensible OTE buy VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian state holding company OeIAG said yesterday it would support Telekom Austria’s possible purchase of a stake in Greek operator OTE if such a step made sense for the company. «We will monitor carefully what opportunities arise for Telekom Austria (regarding the OTE stake),» said Peter Michaelis, chief executive of Austrian state holding OeIAG, at a news conference. «If this is a step that makes sense for employees and shareholders, OeIAG will support it,» Michaelis added. Turkey set to tender oil-exploration licenses in April ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey said yesterday it would launch tenders in April for oil and gas exploration off its Mediterranean coast, an apparent response to a similar move by Cyprus. «Next month, we will launch the farmout process for licenses we have for (areas off) Antalya, Mersin and the Gulf of Iskenderun… We are now preparing the technical groundwork,» Ahmet Faruk Oner, a senior official at the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying. «It means we will start looking for partners for the licenses,» he said. «We will begin the announcements next month.» Oner explained that the licenses covered areas in Turkey’s 12-mile territorial waters and some areas «a little beyond.» Olympic hopes Transport Minister Michalis Liapis will today discuss the issue of Olympic Airlines with European Commissioner for Transport Jacques Barrot, with the Greek side hoping that Brussels will accept the argument of the compensation of sums between the state’s debts to the carrier and the amounts the EU has determined as illegal state subsidies to the company. Producer prices up Greek producer price inflation (PPI) rose slightly in February after decelerating the previous two months, data released by the National Statistics Service showed yesterday. Greek PPI showed a steady decline over the past 12 months, helped by lower oil prices, falling to a 12-month low of 0.0 percent year-on-year in January, from a 9.3 percent rise recorded 12 months earlier. (Reuters) Romanian fiscal deficit Romania’s government ran a consolidated budget deficit of 0.67 percent of gross domestic product at the end of February, compared with a surplus of 0.6 percent in January, its Finance Ministry said yesterday. (Reuters) Turkcell award Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile phone operator and Europe’s second-largest GSM operator, yesterday won the Gartner CRM Excellence Award 2007 for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Turkcell was singled out for its successful deployment of Infor CRM Epiphany, which has dramatically improved interaction with Turkcell’s 31.8 million customers. Turkcell won the award based on its customer-centric strategy which was developed to boost profitability by increasing the number and improving the quality of customer interactions each month.
