With less than a week left until schools fully resume operation on May 21 as part of the second phase of the relaxation of restriction measures, Education Minister Prodromos Prodromou announced Friday that not all students will be returning to classrooms, as per the initial plan.

Italy assured Cyprus on Saturday that it’s energy giant ENI will not leave the island’s exclusive economic zone as long as it has a licence.

DBRS Ratings confirmed Cyprus’ long-term foreign and local currency-issuer rating as BBB (low) on Saturday, downgrading them to stable from positive.

Bank of Cyprus is going ahead with the sale of €144 million worth of unsecured non-performing loans to B2Kapital, it was reported on Friday.

Foreclosures have been suspended until August 31, the Association of Cyprus Banks said on Friday.

Cyprus said European Commission guidelines on lockdown relaxations for reopening borders between member states could see the island’s first tourists coming from Germany and Greece but not the UK.

Paphos is looking to Alexandria to establish a direct link between the two cities and has approached low-cost carrier Ryanair, according to an announcement by the municipality.

Two new cases of Covid-19 were announced on Thursday, bringing to 907 the total of those ever testing positive in the areas under the control of the Republic.

Deferred payments for loans suspended as part of a debt moratorium decreed issued by Finance Ministry to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 impact to the economy amount to €894 million with the total value of affected loans amounting to €7.38 billion, the Central Bank of Cyprus said on Thursday.

The Cyprus Committee of Finance convened this past Monday to discuss the new support package, approved last week by the Council of Ministers. The new package aims to mitigate the negative economic impact to the real economy, caused by the covid-19 pandemic.