Zagrosjet Airlines has launched flights to Cyprus from the Iraqi town of Erbil. The Larnaca-Erbil route will be carried out once a week and will be operated with Airbus 320 and 321 aircraft.

Lawmakers have preliminarily approved the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) budget for 2014, with expenditures estimated at €38 million.

Cyprus’ economic adjustment programme remains on track and progress has been made in all key objectives, the European Commission said recently, though challenges still exist.

New York-based hedge fund Third Point, a major shareholder in Hellenic Bank, has moved to strengthen its position in the lender by purchasing convertible bonds held by the Archbishopric.

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) decided to grant a Cyprus Investment Firm authorization (CIF) to 13 companies on the island.

Thirty-five Cypriot companies are participating in the world’s most prestigious shipping exhibition, Posidonia 2014, which opened recently at the Athens Metropolitan Expo.

All accounts and subscriptions with the electronic system of collapsed Laiki Bank will automatically be transferred to that of Bank of Cyprus over the long weekend of 7-8-9 June 2014.

Cyprus GDP contracted by 4.1% in seasonally adjusted terms, during Q1 2014, compared with the same quarter in 2013, which compares favourably with the troika's prediction 4.8% annual contraction the Finance Ministry announced recently.

Negotiations between the Cyprus Development Bank’s (CDB) shareholders and a Russian group for the acquisition of a 50% equity stake in the lender are almost complete, with the Russian funds already placed in an escrow account.

The updated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a quarterly-updated list of reforms the Cyprus government needs to undertake periodically in order to receive each tranche of a €10 billion rescue loan from the troika is in the hands of the government.