The consortium of ENI and Total is considering searching for more natural gas in offshore blocks6 and 11, a senior executive of the Italian firm said recently.

The state gas company (Defa) said recently it will be inviting tenders next month for the supply of liquified natural gas for power generation.

Various infrastructure projects in the municipalities around Larnaca that have been in drawers for years have begun or will begin in 2018, the district’s tourist development board (Etpal) said recently.

The Co-op bank is not being sold off, a search for investors will begin, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said recently.

It's just a matter of time before the Cypriot economy is upgraded to ‘investment grade’, government spokesman Prodromos Prodromos said recently, after Standard & Poor’s affirmed Cyprus’s BB+ sovereigncredit rating and kept its outlook on ‘positive’, yet still a notch below the critical benchmark for ‘junk’ ratings.

The number of company registrations, an indicator of the performance of the business services sector, rose in February 25% to 1,207 compared to the respective month of 2017, the Department of the Registrar of Companies and Official Receiver said.

Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis said Royal Dutch Shell has showed interest in buying Cypriot and Israeli gas over the next 10 years.

Moody’s Investors Service said that Cyprus’ economy will continue to expand at a fast pace which in turn is likely to help borrowers’ repayment capacity and support the value of assets and new lending, helping banks improve their performance and reduce their non-performing loans stock.

One of the two ExxonMobil research vessels scheduled to carry out explorations in block 10 of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) has departed from Greece and is headed towards Limassol port, according to marinetraffic.com.

Accelerating the reduction of non-performing loans continues to be a key objective, a senior Central Bank official said recently, noting however that a new legal framework that could have helped is largely unenforceable.