The latest report on the operation of the Green Line regulation from the European Commission reports that the value of goods which crossed the Green Line north to south increased by “almost a third” to EUR 4,473,408 in May to April 2008, compared with EUR 3,380,805 in the previous reporting period.
However, because the Commission is only mandated to report the (non-calendar) period under review, it does not always spot all the interesting trends.
For that, you have to look at the long-term and monthly data.
For example, one of the most remarkable recent trends is the rapid increase in Green Line trade within 2008.
Having risen by 28% over the previous year in 2007, Green Line trade rose by 65% over the same period of the previous year in January-June 2008.
The monthly average rose from EUR 345, 365 in 2007 (its highest so far), to 518,506 in January-June 2008.
The European Commission reported that the recent trade increase has been mainly concentrated in potatoes.
We do not have the data for potatoes alone, but the figures for vegetables (the bulk of which are potatoes) bear this out. Vegetable sales rose from EUR 313,496 in the first half of 2007 to EUR 1,328,677 in the first half of 2008, an increase of 324%.
Changing climate
More interestingly, there has been a rapid increase in trade since the beginning of May. In January-April, the average increase of trade compared with the same period of 2007 was an already impressive 46%. In May-June that figure rose to 99%.
The increase for vegetables in May was even more astounding, at more than twelve thousand percent, from EUR 2,352 in May 2007 to EUR 295,567 in May 2008.
In June, vegetable sales rose by well over one thousand percent from EUR 15,863 in June 2007 to EUR 247,093 in June 2008.
What has happened this year to explain these trends?
First, perhaps, the drought. Northern Cyprus is also hit by drought but reportedly has had better access to water than the south. The drought has presumably led to a weaker potato crop in the south and greater demand for potatoes from the north.
But another reason could be related to the political, rather than the geographical climate.
On February 24, Greek Cypriots elected a new president, Demetris Christofias. New leadership was accompanied by new hopes of a solution to the Cyprus problem.
Lifting the psychological barriers
The chart does not show an immediate impact on trade but less than two months later, on April 18, preparatory talks to solve the Cyprus problem were officially launched.
Coincidentally or not, this was also the moment at which trade began to rise rapidly. Whether or not this is just a “Christofias bounce”, or part of a longer-term trend, remains to be seen.
The European Commission report discussed the many practical obstacles to intra-island trade.
As my colleagues and I have discovered during our research and interviews, there are also many difficult psychological barriers to intra-island trade.
The psychological barriers, as well as practical suggestions for overcoming them, will be examined in our forthcoming report, “Why isn’t Green Line trade in Cyprus booming? Psychological barriers to intra-island trade”, by Mete Hatay, Fiona Mullen and Julia Kalimeri, to published later this year by the Cyprus Centre of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).
