Economy Minister Nikos Christodoulakis recently appealed to public utilities to keep a lid on price rises this year to help harness stubbornly high inflation. “Our public utilities are obliged to follow an exceptionally restrained pricing policy in order to contribute… to the fight against inflation,” he told reporters after meeting with heads of several state-controlled utility companies. Listed power utility Public Power Corportaion (PPC), refinery group Hellenic Petroleum and soccer pools and lottery company OPAP were among the companies that took part in the meeting. But analysts were skeptical. “It is a measure which can only be partially implemented as the prices of public enterprises cannot be determined at the discretion of the Finance Ministry,” said Christos Avramides, economist at Proton Bank. Analysts said some companies, such as Hellenic Petroleum had little choice but to follow world markets, while other public enterprises had already penciled in moderate price rises in line with projected inflation.