Cyprus is to make an early repayment in full of a €2.5b Russian loan secured during the financial crisis which has a remaining balance of €1.5b that expires in 2021.

The trend of unicorn IPOs coming to market and pushing their proceeds to historic levels continued in Q2 2019 despite ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and trade tensions, resulting in 507 IPOs in H1 2019, raising total proceeds of US$71.9b. While deal numbers were down 28% from H1 2018, first-day returns on the main markets were up 15.4% on average and post-IPO performance increased 28.4%.

Banks appear to be discouraging customers from turning up at their branches to conduct their business by introducing more fees and increasing existing ones as they would prefer you to go online.

July 2019 set a new all-time record for tourist arrivals for the specific month, breaking the 550,000 mark.

The University of Cyprus has been ranked among the 1,000 best universities of the world, according to the 2019 Academic Ranking of World Universities released by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.

A contest for the construction of the Ayia Napa Amphitheatre has been officially launched, mayor Yiannis Karousos announced recently.

Cyprus recorded a trade deficit of €2.4 billion in the first six months of 2019, compared to €1.8 billion in the same period of 2018, Eurostat said recently.

The ministry of energy, commerce and industry announced it is offering a total of €1.1m for scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, including PhDs, for studies in hydrocarbon-related fields beginning in the 2019-2020 academic year.

Cyprus-based Woodbrook Group Holdings Ltd, one of the world’s fastest growing international firms of financial advisers, has signalled exciting expansion plans with the announcement of a significant new appointment.

The total assets of investment funds increased to approximately €5.5 billion in the second quarter of 2019, figures released recently by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) showed.