Three companies have been shortlisted to proceed to the next phase in the tender for the development of Larnaca port and marina, the Transport Ministry announced recently.

The new venture is expected to create a significant number of Cyprus seated high-tech jobs over the next three years and facilitate the company’s desire to contribute to the local start-up culture.

The job vacancy rate in Cyprus was 1.2% in the first quarter of 2017, up from 0.6% recorded in the previous quarter and 1.0% in the same quarter of 2016, according to figures published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

The number of tourist arrivals rose last month 15% to 418,732 compared with the respective month of 2016, which is an all-time high for the month of May, the statistical service said.

Discussions on a national strategy for tourism will commence in July 2017, with an ambitious plan to have Cyprus an all year tourist destination, attracting over six million visitors annually by 2030, President Nicos Anastasia's said recently.

The Finance Ministry said that it intends to issue a 7-year government euro denominated bond “in the near future depending on market conditions,” and use receipts to buy back outstanding securities.

In October 2016 the Income Tax Law was amended to bring its provisions on taxation of income from the use or sale of intangible assets into line with the “modified nexus” approach.

The East Med pipeline taking gas to Europe from reserves in Israel, Cyprus and south of Cyprus was a visible possibility, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a press interview published recently.

The IMD World Competitiveness Center in Switzerland has recently published the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook of 2017, in which Cyprus is ranked 37th out of 63 countries in terms of the competitiveness of its economy.

The provisions of the EU Regulation setting up the new European Account Preservation Orders (Regulation No. 655/2014) will come into force on 18 January 2017. Under the new changes, creditors domiciled in participating EU Member States (which incorporates all Member States except for the UK and Denmark) will have the capacity to apply to freeze funds in a debtor's bank account in any other participating Member State using a single application form.