According to the latest data from the Statistical Service, construction materials prices in the period January-September 2006 rose by 5.25% over the corresponding period of the previous year. The price index of construction materials for September alone reached 132.39 units (base year 2000=100.00), recording a marginal decrease of 0.01% over the previous month. The breakdown

SMEs must get more competitiveness out of standardisation, was the message of the World Standards Day 2006 conference organised by the European Commission today in Brussels. The use of voluntary standards to support European legislation on the free circulation of goods has been one of the success stories in building a Single European Market. These

The European Commission will provide to the business free on-line access to excise registration numbers which are attributed to operators which are allowed to produce, store, transport and/or receive excise products under suspension of duties. This on-line access to ‘SEED-on-Europa’ allows verification of the validity of economic operators’ excise numbers and the categories of goods

The latest data from the International Monetary Market showed that net yen short positions jumped to a record 123,598 in the week ending Oct. 10 from 104,151 the previous week. Such a big amount of outstanding yen short positions suggests that speculators are prone to reversing them in a hurry if the Japanese currency were

The Athens Stock Exchange and the Cyprus Stock Exchange signed the final agreement for the launch of the common platform on October 30, 2006.    The common CSE-ASE platform will strengthen the long-term and prosperous cooperation between the two stock exchanges and will open up new prospects for a development in the Balkans and the

Kuwaiti authorities have said they are stepping up their anti-piracy campaign and reinforcing their cooperation with Business Software Alliance (BSA) to ensure the protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in the country through widespread education and enforcement efforts. Kuwaiti will step up the campaign through a series of seminars, trainings and conferences targeted at specific

Ericsson introduced the world’s first fully automatic mobile telephone system in 1956, a breakthrough that has dramatically changed the way people communicate with each other. Fifty years on, more than 2.5 billion people in the world now own a mobile phone. Mobile communication has become one of the most important technological innovations of all time

This week’s report looks principally at the latest security bulletins released by Microsoft as part of its policy to publish security updates every second Tuesday of the month. These bulletins offer solutions for a range of errors and vulnerabilities in the company’s systems and applications. The report also takes a look at two malicious codes: