The Franco-British consortium Eurotunnel is today expected to announce a large reduction in its losses for 1997, financial analysts have predicted.

Eurotunnel, which runs the Channel Tunnel, could post losses of three billion francs (£358 million sterling), half that of 1996, and could for the first time announce operating profits for all of last year.

For the first half of 1997, the company posted operating profits of 120 million francs. Increased traffic through the tunnel since a fire in November 1996 damaged heavy goods trade for six months, is behind the company's apparent change in fortune.