The job vacancy rate in Cyprus stood at 1.0% and by 1.7% in the euroarea in the second quarter of 2016, stable compared with the previous quarter, but up from 1.5% in the second quarter of 2015, according to figures published by Eurostat.

The number of tourist arrivals rose 17% in August 2016 to 458,645 compared to the respective month of 2015, which was an all-time high for an August, the statistical service said.

Standard & Poor’s upgraded its assessment of Cyprus by one notch to BB recently, with the rating agency saying the outlook was ‘positive’.

Finance Minister Harris Georgiades expects that Cyprus will annually receive up to €600m in gas revenues inside of 12 years once exploitation of the Aphrodite field begins.

A Cyprus-Jordan preliminary gas agreement is being mulled by experts negotiating the best way to execute it, said newly-appointed ambassador Mohamad Elfayez.

An international study claims that Cyprus needs to become a prime destination so that it could haul in over six million tourists every year and swell its annual income from foreign visitors to a whopping €7b.

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is the fuel of the future for ships, Transport Minister Marios Demetriades said recently.

Health Minister George Pamboridis has been invited to Iran where he will meet his counterpart and sign important memorandums of understandings in an effort for the two countries to cooperate on health.

The closure of former Laiki’s Rosprombank subsidiary in Russia has prevented the sale of one of Legacy Laiki assets to a hedge fund just as a deal was about to be signed.

Health Minister George Pamboridis has announced June 1 in 2020 as the final deadline for implementing a National Health Scheme in Cyprus.