Minister of Finance, Harris Georgiades, said the government will gradually ease the tax burden and increase its development spending as fiscal conditions improve.

Economic and business relations between Cyprus and Austria, dating back six decades, could be enhanced and expanded to cover more fields, an economic forum addressed by the Austrian President Heinz Fischer, in Nicosia, showed recently.

Unemployment rate in October 2015 dropped by 10.4% on an annual basis, the Statistical Service of Cyprus said recently.

Consumer prices dropped an annual 2.5% in October 2015, as the deflation rate remained unchanged as in September, the statistical service said.

The year 2015 has been positive for Cypriot tourism, Energy and Tourism Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis said during a recent news conference at the World Travel Market in London.

Cypriot lenders will not be included in an EU-wide exercise early in 2016 testing banks’ financial resilience.

Bank of Cyprus has received Best Private Bank award 2015 from the Global Finance international magazine.

Cyprus unemployment rate fell slightly this September to 15.1% compared with last September when it reached 16.3%, according to data released by Eurostat.

Cyprus and Egypt signed a Memorandum of Military and Defence Cooperation recently, further enhancing their relations.

Setting up a bad bank with government money to tackle the high stock of non-performing loans in Cyprus would require a second bailout, an official familiar with the economic developments has said.