Euro info campaign to start next week

President Tassos Papadopoulos will inaugurate the official launching of the euro information campaign next Wednesday, May 31, at the Hilton Park hotel at 11 a.m..

Speakers will include the Minister of Finance, Michalis Sarris, The Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus, Christodoulos Christodoulou, as well as two foreign speakers.

Interpretation from Greek to English and vice versa will be provided.

The Cyprus pound entered the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM2) one year ago on May 2nd at a central parity rate of 0.585274 per euro.

It has remained stronger than that central rate ever since, recording a mid-rate of 0.5750 on Monday May 22.

The final locking of the exchange rate, which is expected to be the same as the central parity rate, is expected in the second half of 2007. This implies that anyone holding foreign debt will see it increase from today’s value by around 1.8%.

Cyprus is now around a year and a half away from its targeted euro adoption date of January 1st 2008 and a year away from the final assessment to see if it meets all the Maastricht criteria on the deficit, debt, inflation, interest rates and exchange rates.

Everything is on course to meet the criteria so far, but given how strict the authorities were with Lithuania which failed to make the mark last week owing to inflation, it is not yet time to relax.

Fiona Mullen