Gyms, casinos and other recreational activities resumed on Saturday around three months after the lockdown was imposed.

The shooting of the film Man of War by Dimitris Logothetis is set to get underway in Cyprus in the last quarter of 2020, after the recent approval by the Cabinet of the revised development plan for a film industry in Cyprus, producers said on Friday.

The Cyprus government will be reissuing a call for the expression of interest by bidders who have acquired the necessary equipment needed for rapid COVID-19 tests, so that incoming tourists won’t need to spend a night in quarantine until labs check their sample for the virus.

Cyprus’ deputy minister for tourism Savvas Perdios told the Daily Mail that the island will be ready in the event that a tourist contracts coronavirus while on holiday here, while every effort will be made so that the ‘holiday vibe’ is maintained even while visitors and those accompanying them are in isolation.

After reviewing epidemiological data, Cyprus has relegated Israel from the Category A list of countries allowed entry and promoted Switzerland, Czech Republic as low-risk COVID-19 nations.

The European Commission has approved a €33 million Cypriot aid scheme deferring VAT payments to ease the liquidity constraints of companies affected by the coronavirus outbreak. The scheme was approved under the State aid Temporary Framework adopted by the Commission on 19 March 2020, as amended on 3 April and 8 May 2020.

There were 23,200 campsites in the EU in 2018, the vast majority of which were located in rural areas (68%) or towns and suburbs (26%), while 6% of campsites were located in cities, according to a new report published on Thursday by Eurostat.

A Cypriot scientist is behind a new, simple to use, coronavirus lab-free test which returns results in just over an hour, hailed as a valuable tool in the UK’s battle against the pandemic.

Cyprus recorded the third highest ’motorisation rate’ among EU Member States in 2018 with 629 cars per 1,000 inhabitants, according to Eurostat data published on Thursday.

The government will support the agricultural sector with additional measures following the coronavirus crisis, one of which is to subsidise the export of watermelons, agriculture minister Costas Kadis said on Thursday.