Cyprus deserved a higher rating on tax transparency than the OECD gave it in a report last week, the finance ministry has said.

The government is to begin talks with an Italian-South Korean consortium that may lead to the award of gas and oil exploration concessions for offshore blocks 5 and 6.

A senior official at the IMF, that is heading the international bailout programme for Cyprus, and the president’s economic advisory body, are pushing for a quick implementation of a privatisation programme, conditional to the next tranche of the 10 bln euros in aid.

The University of Nicosia said it became the first accredited university in the world to accept the digital currency Bitcoin for tuition and other fees.

Finance Minister Harris Georgiades has said that a roadmap for the privatisation of semi government enterprises will go ahead as scheduled and will probably be ready by the end of next month, as unions threatened to respond with “mass and combative” mobilisation.

The Finance Ministry has chosen the audit and advisory firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young) to carry out a fair value assessment of the island’s Cooperative credit institutions (Co-ops), a term of the a €1.5bn capital injection given by the state to cover their estimated capital shortfall.

Officials have denied that Noble Energy, operators of the Block 12 offshore licence, has reportedly asked for a ‘time-out’ in talks on a mooted gas liquefaction terminal here.

Development is the key to pulling the country out of the recession, big developers have said, following a meeting with President Nicos Anastasiades.

Hellenic Bank has reported a third quarter net loss of €87.2 million as net income dropped and provisions for non performing loans (NPLs) more than doubled compared with Q3 2012.

The Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) is satisfied with the increase in tourist arrivals in October as well as the increase in revenue in the previous two months.