Address
by the President of the Republic
Mr
Nicos Anastasiades
at
the 16th
Pafos Aphrodite Festival
I
am very pleased to address this evening the opening of the “Pafos
Aphrodite Festival”, being organized for the 16th
consecutive year. The Festival has become an institution and
constitutes a significant internationally-renowned cultural event,
which contributes to the promotion of both Pafos and Cyprus as a
whole.
Within
the framework of the Festival, being held in the magnificent venue of
the Medieval Castle of Pafos, we will enjoy this year the Opera
Futura from Verona, which will present, with the participation of the
Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, the popular opera by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, Cosi Fan Tutte.
I
take this opportunity to congratulate the founding members of the
company “Pafos Aphrodite Festival”: the Municipalities of Pafos,
Yeroskipou and Peyia, the Pafos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and
the Cyprus Hotel Association – Pafos District Committee. The
founding of the company has been the culmination of these five
stakeholders’ will to cooperate, having as a main objective the
promotion of Pafos as an international hub of high-level cultural
events. These events have contributed, to a great extent, to the
reinforcement of cultural tourism in our island and to the creation
of an audience of refined aesthetics. At the same time they have
created a very successful cultural institution, which, through the
confluence of venue and spectacle, has achieved the promotion of a
prominent monument of our cultural heritage – the Medieval Castle
of Pafos – as a host venue of world-renowned opera productions.
The
Government attributes particular significance to the role played by
local authorities in general and particularly as regards the
development of culture. The promotion of such institutions reflects
our objectives and pursuits, and that is why we practically support
the Festival’s events by sponsoring – as much as possible – its
organisation through the Ministry of Education and Culture and the
Ministry of Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism. At the same time,
we encourage the private sector to contribute effectively to such
events with equivalent sponsorships.
Our country’s cultural
development ranks highly among the Government’s priorities, and for
this purpose we are promoting a series of further measures, with the
first one being the restructuring of the management of culture
through the creation of new upgraded cultural structures. This
measure will allow, inter alia, the drawing up of a national cultural
policy aimed at the balanced development of all cultural sectors.
Moreover, significant infrastructure projects are already in the
works, such as the construction work at the old building of SPEL
(Cooperative Bank of Nicosia) – to make it part of the National
Gallery – the refurbishment of the Nicosia Municipal Theatre, and
the choice of the site of the State Library. Furthermore, every
possible effort will be made in order to provide substantial
assistance to the city of Pafos, which has been appointed European
Capital of Culture in 2017. These constitute just a small sample of
the Government’s overall effort in the direction of reinforcing
culture.
With
these thoughts I would like to congratulate once more the organizers
and the stakeholders of the Festival, which constitutes a fulfillment
of the goal for the enrichment and promotion of our country’s
cultural life, and to wish them success in their task.
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