Cyprus Editorial: At last, let’s talk about strategy

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The island’s two main business groups, the employers’ federation OEV and the Chamber of Commerce, KEVE, seem to have overcome the confrontational attitudes of the past and have finally started to look forward, and are about to finalise a new strategy for the next 13 years.

This is a most welcome development, as in the past, possibly because of the militant approach of trade unions, these two groups were often engaged in long and arduous negotiations over pay, most times unrealistic and going against the trends of the times.

The new strategy, that is in the final stage of review by local chapters of both groups, is based around six pillars that range from sustainable production and resolving infrastructure issues, to digitisation and reaching out to new markets.

Some of the new ‘priorities’ seem to go hand-in-hand with a recent survey by the Human Resources Development Agency that has come up with the ‘most needed’ professions in the immediate future.

Thus, instead of colleges and universities imposing course-related professions on the labour market, sometimes driven by the whims of parents, market forces will determine the jobs most needed in the next few years.

However, some of these strategies have been half-baked in the past and served with pompous grandeur, such as the current administration’s declaration that ‘thousands of jobs’ would be created by the rapidly developing energy sector and by the growing ‘green economy,’ something which has not happened simply because there was no co-ordination among stakeholders and lack of proper incentives.

Considering that some Caribbean island states, whose economies have been decimated by the recent hurricanes, have opted to rebuild their economies from scratch, by opting for sustainable and truly eco-friendly strategies, it should not be too hard for businesses in Cyprus to do the same, as long as the private sector gets some guidance or assistance from the state and other supportive services, such as banks, resume lending some day, injecting desperately needed funds into the economy.