Eurozone to approve next tranche of Cypriot financial assistance programme

The official told reporters that Cyprus has fulfilled all its obligations and that there are no pending issues.

“The compliance report confirms that the Cyprus programme is on the right track, the agreed measures have been implemented and some of the structural measures were approved before the agreement was signed”, the official said.

He noted that the Bank of Cyprus exited the resolution regime in July and that there is a roadmap for lifting restrictions on capital flow and combating money laundering.

For the rest of the banks, the official said that there is a plan for their restructuring by the end of the year which is on track and everybody agrees on it.

The Cypriot economy has been hampered by recession since the third quarter of 2011.

Excluded from international markets since May 2011, Cyprus requested and received a €10 billion financial assistance package from the Troika (EC, ECB, IMF).

The package featured a sizeable reduction of the island`s banking sector, as well as bail-in of uninsured deposits, which hampered the services sector, one of the island`s main source of income.

Recent official data show that the Cypriot economy shrank by 5.9% year on year in the second quarter of 2013, marking its eighth consecutive quarterly GDP reduction.