The country’s trade deficit grew 43% to reach €2.2 billion during the period January-June 2016, up from €1.54 billion during the same period in 2015, according to data from the Statistical Service.

Cyprus is an economy dominated by micro businesses, with 95.5% of enterprises having less then 10 employees, according to the Business Register 2015 published by the Statistical Service, Cystat recently.

Bank of Cyprus reduced its outstanding emergency liquidity assistance to €1.5b or below at the end of August 2016, which is roughly €500m below the July figure, the Central Bank of Cyprus said.

Linde Hadjikyriakos Gas Ltd, part of the multinational German Linde Group, made Cyprus the best performing country with its latest achievement, winning the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Award for ‘Country of the Year’.

Philippines-based casino operator Bloomberry Resorts Corporation has pulled out of the bidding for a casino licence in Cyprus, it confirmed recently.

Wargaming Group Ltd. is promoting Cyprus as an ideal destination for a good quality of life, a professional career and recreation, through a promotional video it created on its own initiative.

The government finds itself in an advanced stage of negotiations between a Cypriot and Chinese consortium, which plan to use the old Larnaca airport as a wholesale commercial park and to re-export various products to the Middle East and EU member states.

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’.