The President of the Republic, Mr Nicos Anastasiades,
expressed the belief that with hard and collective work, we can turn the crisis
into an opportunity, by daring today what we haven’t dared in the past. It seems, he said, that Cyprus is on the road
of a new economic miracle, something that does not escape the attention and
appreciation of both our international creditors and the international Press.
Speaking at the ceremony for the Cyprus Exports Awards
2012, President Anastasiades said that the course of recovery of the economy
has registered its first positive results.
Just eight months after the tough decisions of last March and after
three years of continuous downgrading, in November we had the first upgrading
of our economy from an international Ratings Service. At the same time, like during the first two
evaluations from our international creditors, the recent third in line
evaluation is positive and encouraging.
He added that after the last evaluation by Troika, the
updated Memorandum for this year foresees that the core deficit will be
significantly lower and will be limited to 277 million euro or 1.8% of GDP in
relation to the 483 million euro or 3% of the GDP that was the previous
forecast.
The President of the Republic spoke about how
reliable international Media, like the strict German financial Press, after
months of negative comments are obliged today to refer to the course of
recovery of the Cyprus economy as well as about the effort to go ahead with
structural changes and necessary reforms with praise. They mention that Cyprus has now achieved its
goals fully since the beginning of the programme. A phenomenon, they add, that is unusual for
European standards in the last few years, even in cases of countries that got
good evaluations, like Ireland, which recently exited the Memorandum.
President Anastasiades said that the foreign Press
speaks about a country which is in a course of unprecedented successful and
coordinated effort since the beginning, in order to face the economic crisis,
and clarifies that while in the beginning it was foreseen that the recession
would touch or surpass 8.7%, in the end, due to the corrective and timely moves
on our part, it was limited to 5.3%.
The President of the Republic added that “with the aim
to provide motives to businesses for the facilitation and reinforcement of business
activity, but also to generally mitigate the effects of the economic crisis,
the Government announced measures of development, ensuring that, for obvious
reasons, they will not have a large financial impact. Through careful studies about the needs of
the economy, we moved to the announcement of these measures, so that we can
provide the necessary tools for our businesses to be able to survive firstly,
but to also take advantage of business opportunities.”
Moreover, he spoke about the various economic sectors
in which Cyprus shows comparative advantages like tourism, offshore activities,
exports and transit trade. Our vision,
he stressed, is for our country to regain its reliability abroad and mainly to
become an important base for economic and business activities in the wider
area.
Finally, he underlined Cyprus’ geostrategic importance
as a factor of stability and security in the Eastern Mediterranean region, a
fact that is recognized by important powers of the world, especially after the
discovery of hydrocarbons in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone and the
Government’s plans for the development and better exploitation of Cyprus’
underwater wealth.
_______________
