Romania's Fertiliser Maker Azomures Turns to 9-mo Net Profit of 196.07 Mln Lei (52.6 Mln Euro) - Table

Company officials were not immediately available to comment.

Azomures shares closed up 2.22% at 0.23 lei on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, on Friday.

Following are data from the company's statement sent to the BVB after the end of trading hours (in millions of lei):

Earlier this week Azomures said it would operate at half capacity and suspend the working contracts of 250 of its employees as of this month due to low market demand. It expects to operate at half capacity until the end of this year with an option to extend that period depending on the future economic and financial conditions.

Azomures has said it plans to increase its net profit to 61.8 million lei this year, from 55.6 million in 2007. It turned to half-year net profit of some 132.2 million lei, from a loss of 6.14 million lei in the first half of 2007.

(1 euro = 3.7296 Romanian lei)