Category: Cyprus

I live in Cyprus for many years now. It is a beautiful little island in Mediterranean Sea. It features warm weather for most of the year, sea, very kind and hospital people, plenty of jobs in IT industry, good food and plenty of alcohol, stable currency, and more. It’s really a nice place to live if you can handle small towns and villages. It’s also a great place to raise the kids.

Not much happens here. It is a quiet and simple place. Yet, when something happens or when I write about it, I post it to Cyprus category.

Shipping to save Cyprus, President says

Cyprus Mail reports:

PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades yesterday invited the shipping sector to play a leading role in the recovery of the economy.
Anastasiades was speaking at the 24th Annual General Meeting of the Cyprus Shipping Chamber in Limassol where he said the industry had not been affected overall by the banking crisis.

“The shipping sector now constitutes a crucial part of the ‘spinal column’ on which the Cyprus economy will depend in its road to recovery,” he said. Shipping contributes around 5.0 per cent to GDP.

“Foresight, proper planning and hard work are therefore virtues which are now indispensable in our mission to preserve Cyprus’ leading edge. For this precise reason the government is determined to introduce those mechanisms necessary to protect this important sector, as well as reinforce it further,” said Anastasiades.

Here is my translation to human-speak:  we, the government, helped to demolish tourism, banking, and real estate industries.  Shipping – you are next!

The problem of a small country

Cyprus Mail reports:

FORMER supreme court judge Panayiotis Kallis has resigned from the committee of inquiry tasked with probing the circumstances which led the economy and banking sector to the brink of collapse.

In a letter to the President and the justice minister, Kallis said he felt obliged to step down citing a possible conflict of interest with his sons’ law practice.

In the letter, Kallis explained that he could not in good conscience continue his work as his sons’ law firm has taken on clients challenging the ‘haircut’ on deposits at Laiki and Bank of Cyprus.

That in itself did not constitute a conflict of interest, Kallis explained. However, he subsequently discovered (on Monday) that some of his sons’ clients plan to argue in court that the haircut and the winding down of Laiki are the result of inadequate supervision/negligence by regulatory authorities such as the Central Bank and the lack of corrective fiscal measures on the part of the state.

I certainly do appreciate the openness in such a sensitive issue.  But I also wonder if we have enough people in this country to staff such a committee.  I mean, it should consist of people who are competent enough to understand and investigate the problem.  Yet, on the other hand, we live in a small country, where everybody is connected to everybody, and where competent people are scarce resource.  Is it possible to find enough competent people who aren’t somehow in conflict of interest in regards to the problem that has affected the whole country?