In Brief
Private car sales projected to fall Private car sales in Greece will fall to 1999 levels this year, according to data presented at a press briefing in Thessaloniki yesterday, in view of the third Car & Moto-Boat Show which opens tomorrow. Sales are projected at 260,000 from 279,600 in 2001 and 289,300 in 2000. Nearly nine in 10 cars sold (88 percent) belong to the under-1600 cc category, where prices are lower than the EU average. The average replacement time for cars remains high in relation to the rest of the EU, making for a relatively «old» fleet of air-polluting cars. The show, to run through April 21 at Helexpo’s pavilions 12, 13 and 15, hosts 150 exhibitors and will be inaugurated by Deputy Transport Minister Spyros Vougias. The show includes a seminar on the changes due in the Greek car market from October 2002. Meanwhile, the second Executive Cars Show is due to be inaugurated at the Ioannis Vellidis Center on the Helexpo grounds at 8 p.m. today. The show, to run daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. through April 21, hosts 14 firms and will only feature 35 models exhibited for the first time in Greece and priced over 35,000 euros. They include the Audi A4 Cabrio, the Jaguar X-Type and S-Type series, the Mercedes E-class and Maserati Coupe. GNTO chief meets UAE delegates Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) Chairman Yiannis Patelis yesterday met with visiting representatives of 20 travel industry operators from the United Arab Emirates, in view of GNTO’s participation this year for the first time in the international tourism exhibition in Dubai, slated to open May 8. A further meeting is scheduled for Friday. Patelis also announced the opening of a public information bureau at GNTO’s head office in Athens, 2 Amerikis St, on April 22. He also said GNTO will publish a tourism guide for individuals with special needs, in the framework of preparations for the Paralympic Games in 2004, and another guide for the five cities that will host events of the Olympic Games: Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Iraklion and Volos. Business channel NetMed Hellas yesterday announced the launch of Greek Business Channel (GBC) on the Nova subscriber television platform. Labis Tagmatarchis, NetMed Hellas’s managing director, said at a press conference that GBC, the first such channel in Greek, covers Greek as well as global economic developments through links with foreign media. Its program is broadcast from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. A group of academics has been assigned the task of drawing up GBC’s own code of ethics, Tagmatarchis said. Agrologistics The Northern Greece Industries Association (SBBE), the Dutch Embassy and the Agricultural Bank are holding a working meeting on the potential for turning Thessaloniki into an agrologistics center for the Balkans, at the Makedonia Palace Hotel tomorrow. Infoquest Piraeus Bank has assigned information technology firm Infoquest the task of updating and servicing its computer network throughout Greece, including telecommunications facilities. Everest Food retailer Everest has received an ISO 9001 quality assurance certificate from TüV Hellas for the planning, production and distribution of the full range of its products.
