Promoting the island’s tourist product must be intensified and the tourism organisation (CTO) must be given more advertising money, CTO vice chairman Costas Koumis said recently.

The European Central Bank governing council is meeting in Nicosia on Thursday 5 March and is set to reveal details of plans to buy €1.1 trillion worth of eurozone assets as part of its landmark quantitative easing programme.

Cyprus is on track to exit the adjustment programme before the original deadline of 2016, European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi said recently from Nicosia.

CEOs in Cyprus are clearly more confident in 2015 about their companies’ revenue growth prospects.

Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said he would welcome a decision by euro area finance ministers to divert funds earmarked to recapitalise banks to the refinancing of existing debt.

The yield on the Cyprus government 10-year bond, maturing in 2020, dropped below 5% to 4.96%, but still above the four-year low of 4.50% recorded in September 2014.

The Public Debt Management Office of the Ministry of Finance announced that the recent 13-week Treasury Bills auction for €200 million was oversubscribed.

The value of goods in the transport and storage sector recorded a decrease of 1.4% in 2014 according to the annual Turnover Value Index published by the Statistical Service Cystat, with land transport and water transport enjoying an increase of 6.8% and 13.3%, respectively, while air transport recording a record annual fall of 25,6%.

The sectors of accommodation and food service activities recorded an annual increase of 4.2% in 2014, according to the Statistical Service Cystat, a trend underlined by recent tourism data that showed an increase in arrivals but a slight fall in money spent by tourists.

Cyprus posted a seasonally adjusted 16.1% unemployment rate in January 2015, the fourth largest in the European Union and third largest in the euro area, down from 16.4% the month before and 15.7% a year ago, Eurostat said recently.