In Brief
Government bond trade volume falls in August The volume of Greek government debt traded on the central bank’s electronic system (HDAT) fell sharply to 28.43 billion euros in August from 55.74 billion in July, the Bank of Greece said yesterday. The central bank said the most actively traded bond was the 10-year benchmark which recorded 8 billion euros worth of transactions. With 30-year paper the only exception, Greek government bond yields fell along the entire maturity spectrum in August, in line with the performance in the rest of the eurozone. The sharpest fall in yields was seen at the short end of the curve with the yield of 3-year government paper down 22 basis points to 4.22 percent. The 10-year benchmark bond yield dropped 10 basis points to 4.59 percent. The average monthly yield spread between Greek and German 10-year benchmark bonds widened further to 31 from 27 basis points in July. (Reuters) Turkey’s Aselsan signs $700 mln helicopter deal ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish defence industry leader Aselsan said yesterday it had signed an agreement worth $700 million to produce attack helicopters with fellow Turkish firm TAI and Turkey’s Defence Industry Undersecretariat.Delivery of the helicopters is expected to begin in 2009, the company said in a statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Aselsan is majority owned by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation. Turkcell wins 3G tender Leading Turkish mobile phone operator Turkcell, the sole bidder, won a tender yesterday for a third generation phone licence with a bid of 321 million euros, the tender commission said. The commission’s chairman said the tenders for the remaining three planned licences were cancelled due to a lack of bidders. (Reuters) IMF to visit Turkey An International Monetary Fund team will visit Turkey on September 12 and 13 for talks with the country’s newly appointed economic team, including Economy Minister Mehmet Simsek, in Ankara. «At the request of Minister Simsek, Lorenzo Giorgianni, the IMF mission chief for Turkey, will visit Ankara during September 12-13 to be introduced to the new economic team,» the IMF said in a statement on Thursday. (Reuters) Cyprus tourism Tourists’ spending in Cyprus from January to June increased by 2.3 percent year-on-year to 395.5 million Cyprus pounds (US$919.8 million), the Statistics Department said yesterday. In June alone, revenues from tourism totalled 121.4 million or 3.2 percent above the respective month of 2006. (Reuters) Budget surplus Cyprus reported yesterday a 83.2 million Cyprus pounds (US$193.5 million) budget surplus for January to June 2007, compared with a 60.9 million deficit in the respective period of 2006. Total revenues amounted to 1.83 billion Cyprus pounds and total expenditure to 1.75 billion Cyprus pounds, the statistics department said. (Reuters)
