Cyprus ship management revenues decreased slightly by 0.95% to €523m in the first six months of 2019 corresponding to 4.9% of GDP (as turnover) which is unchanged.

Cyprus recently granted the first hydrocarbon exploitation licence to the consortium that owns the Aphrodite concession, with a view to pipe gas to Egypt and export it in the form of LNG.

As of October 30th 2019, the parliament of Ukraine passed a draft law endorsing the amending Double Tax Treaty Protocol, signed on December 11th 2015, to the Cyprus – Ukraine Income Tax Treaty. Consequently, the amending protocol is now in operation and will come into full effect by 1st January, 2020.

The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will begin its assessment of Cyprus’ intention to repay the remainder of its 2013 bailout to the International Monetary Fund of over €700m, its Managing Director Klaus Regling said.

Cyprus credit card transactions in October 2019 increased by 4%, reflecting stable consumer confidence while online payments to the state did not play a significant role in the rise.

Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said recently that the importance of the citizenship by investment programme should not be overestimated.

Cyprus is putting in place a national strategy for the development of Artificial Intelligence that should be completed by December, House President Demetris Syllouris said recently speaking at the Honggiao Economic Forum in Shanghai.

PwC Cyprus was the Premium Gold Sponsor of the 15th Economist Conference which was held on November 4 and 5 in Nicosia. The conference focused on issues such as the developments and economic prospects of the European Union, Brexit, security in the region as well as strengthening fiscal discipline, social cohesion and the culture of innovation.

The backlog of high-quality IPOs continues to grow as issuers await more favorable market conditions, pushing IPO activity down across many markets in Q3 2019 compared with Q3 2018.

Elias Neocleous & Co LLC Human Resources team has been judged worthy of a Gold Award in the 2019 Cyprus HR Awards.