In Brief
OPAP Euro 08 revenues reach 200 million euros Greek betting monopoly OPAP’s revenue from Euro 2008 soccer championship betting will reach about 200 million euros ($316 million), meeting market expectations, gaming industry sources said yesterday. «Taking into account that the payout ratio for winners was much lower than the 77 percent at the 2006 World Cup and that we had 32 games, revenue from Euro 2008 most likely reached about 200 million euros,» a gaming industry source told Reuters. Another source also provided the same figure. Analysts expect OPAP’s first-half sales from flagship fixed-odds sports betting game Stoichima to reach 1.3 billion euros, mainly boosted by increased bets at the European soccer championship earlier this month. Stoichima makes up about 40 percent of OPAP’s revenues. Its sales in the first half of 2007 totaled 999.2 million euros. (Reuters) Retail sales volume rebounds in April Greece’s retail sales by volume continued to rebound, rising 2.3 percent in April after a 0.5 percent annual increase in March, a sign recent softness in consumer spending may be waning. Retail sales by revenues rose 6.6 percent year-on-year in April after a 4.5 percent rise in the previous month, data from the National Statistics Service showed yesterday. (Reuters) Romanian risks The Romanian financial sector faces only moderate risks to its stability from global market turbulence, the central bank said in an annual report yesterday. «The impact of world financial market turbulence… has so far been limited, materializing mainly in increased costs of financing from abroad,» the bank said in a statement. The bank said in its annual financial stability report that liquidity in the Romanian banking sector remained at «comfortable» levels, even though it was falling. However, risks to companies and households have picked up against a background of rising volatility of the leu exchange rate and growing foreign currency indebtedness, underlining the need to raise monetary policy restrictiveness, the bank said. One of Europe’s best-performing currencies in the first half of 2007, the leu fell steeply against the euro from a five-year high in that summer due to worries over sustainability of the economy and a ballooning current account deficit. (Reuters) Refinery upgrade Bulgarian refinery Neftochim Burgas, controlled by Russia’s Lukoil will invest $249 million this year to produce cleaner motor fuels and meet stringent European Union emission standards, it said yesterday. «The refinery will use most of the funds this year to upgrade and build new hydrocrackers to meet the EU standards as of 2009,» the refinery spokeswoman said. Brussels has adopted strict caps on sulfur content in diesel fuels, which has to be cut to 10 parts per million from 2009 from 50 ppm at present to limit air pollution. Neftochim, the Balkan country’s only operational refinery, said earlier this month it plans to boost crude oil processing up to 7.3 million tons this year (146,200 barrels per day). (Reuters)
