Greek Cypriot spending in north rises 15.4% in Jan-Oct

Plastic card spending by Greek Cypriots in the “Occupied Areas and Attaleia” rose by 15.4% to EUR 9.02 mln in the first ten months of 2010, according to data from the credit card company JCC Payment Systems, up from EUR 7.81 mln in the same period of 2009.
Given the small number of people who travel to Turkey relative to those who visit the north, only a tiny proportion of that is likely to have been spent in Attaleia (Antalya).
In October alone, card spending was up 2.5%. This was the month in which the new Limnitis/Yeshilirmak crossing across the UN Green Line was opened.
As usual the largest proportion of plastic card spending in January-October as a whole was on entertainment (EUR 1.56 mln), which is probably spent at the casinos, since they are banned in the south.
However, this was a dramatic drop of 47.1% on the EUR 3.31 mln spent in the first ten months of 2009. There could be two plausible reasons for this: either the recession is taking its toll on gamblers, or those little betting shops in the south, which hint that you can play casino games inside, and which have sprung up on every street corner this year, have taken the a chunk out of the market.

On the other hand, airline sales have seen a dramatic increase this year, rising by 673.7% in January-October to reach EUR 1.17 mln, compared with just EUR 151,169 in the same period of 2009.
As discussed last month, we are still trying to get to the bottom of this but it could represent an increase in business travel via Turkey or even an increase in business between Greek Cypriot and Turkish businesses.

Turkish Cypriot spending up 4.9%
Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriots spent EUR 14.7 mln using credit and debit cards in the southern part of Cyprus during the first ten months of the year, a rise of 4.9% on the EUR 14.0 mln spent in the same period of 2009.
The most popular item was supermarkets (reaching EUR 3.24 mln), followed by clothing (EUR 2.55 mln) and “other retailers” (EUR 2.60 mln).

Fiona Mullen, Sapienta Economics Ltd