Cyprus reopened its airports on Tuesday after almost three months of lockdown, hoping its record in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic will lure tourists back to its beaches.

Cyprus vehicle registrations recorded a drop of 29% in the first five months to May on an annual basis, official data shows.

President Nicos Anastasiades on Monday hailed as historic the signing of an agreement with the UK to allow development of certain areas inside the British sovereign bases, 60 years after independence.

Today marks the resumption of flights at the airports and cruise services at the island’s ports, but Limassol port master Panayiotis Agathocleous does not expect cruise visits to resume before the end of the year or early 2021.

As of yesterday, Cyprus moved on to activate phase 3 of the government’s strategy to lift restrictive measures imposed due to Covid19. Due to Cyprus’ excellent epidemiology record thus far, phase 3 will end on June 24, and the complete lifting of measures is scheduled to end on July 14, 2020.

Parliament on Friday approved €220 million to cover labour ministry employment support schemes and funding for small businesses.

The measures implemented by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC), a nine-month loan repayment moratorium and a €1.4 billion capital release issued to the banks, gave time both to the banks and the economy to recover part of their cash flow as lockdown measures enforced to curb the spread of the coronavirus outbreak are gradually lifted, CBC Governor Constantinos Herodotou has said.

Cyprus had the highest proportion of bathing sites with excellent water quality in the European Union with 99.1.%, according to a report by the European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) published on Monday.

Cyprus takes a big step in restarting its all-important tourism sector with the reopening today of Larnaca and Paphos airports.

Cyprus has every right to feel proud of itself, a member of the government’s scientific team said on Thursday after it announced zero new cases, keeping the total at Wednesday’s level of 958.