Cyprus economy enjoys third year of growth

September 4, 2017

Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said that he is satisfied with the state of the Cypriot economy, noting that the growth rate in 2017 will reach 3.5%.

“The Cypriot economy has been through dramatically difficult conditions,” said Georgiades in an interview with the Greek newspaper “Kathimerini”, adding that “ominous” projections have been proven wrong.

“We stayed in the eurozone, we rendered the Troika unnecessary and we are in the third year of recovery”.

Asked how the Cypriot economy was led to recovery, the Minister said that the recovery can only be a result of the efforts of the private sector.

“A government can either support these efforts or undermine them.”

Georgiades rejected tax hikes as a means of reducing deficits.

“What allowed us to eliminate the deficit and function with a totally balanced budget was not taxes but limiting public spending”. He added that the 2018 state budget will also be balanced.

On the contribution of natural gas to the growth of the economy, Georgiades said that it is a significant but long-term return investment and in this sense “it cannot rid us of the difficult effort to consolidate and reform our economy”.

Source: in-cyprus.com