The negative climate prevailing in the tourist industry has been reversed during the last three months, Cyprus Tourism Organisation chairman Alekos Orountiotis has said, estimating that tourist arrivals in 2012 will be maintained at the same level of 2011. He said that the negative projections for 2012 were confirmed during the first months of the
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New US Ambassador to Cyprus John Koenig said that if confirmed by the Senate, his top priority will be to support efforts to reunite Cyprus into a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. Speaking on Wednesday before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in Washington, Koenig noted that “the longstanding division must come to an end through
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Fitch Ratings has upgraded the Cyprus Popular Bank's Viability Rating (VR) to 'cc' from 'f' following a government recapitalisation of 1.8 bln euros with the state now becoming the major shareholder with an 84% stake. The bank’s support-driven Issuer Default Ratings remained unaffected. However, the rating agency said that Popular's first-quarter pro-forma core capital ratio,
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Asian shares rose on Thursday as strong corporate profits from U.S. bellwethers allayed fears of a slowdown in earnings, particularly for the beleaguered tech sector, while the euro steadied after overnight weakness. European shares were set to open slightly higher with the Eurostoxx 50 futures and Germany's DAX futures up 0.4% while U.S. stock futures
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The European Central Bank could play a bigger role in fighting the euro zone sovereign debt crisis through more rate cuts, bond purchases and further liquidity provision, the International Monetary Fund said in a regular report on the euro zone. The IMF also said that the independent ECB, which is legally forbidden to finance governments,
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Greek coalition leaders agreed to meet next week to hammer out almost 12 bln euros worth of austerity cuts demanded by the near-bankrupt country's lenders after a deal proved elusive at an initial round of talks on Wednesday. Greek officials have spent the past week scrambling to identify the savings for 2013 and 2014 before
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Six people were killed in a bomb attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists at the Bulgarian resort airport of Burgas on Wednesday and Israel accused Tehran of carrying out the attack, promising a strong response to "Iranian terror." Body parts were strewn across the ground and mangled metal hung from the bus's torn-back roof.
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Standard and Poor’s estimates that any bailout for cash-strapped Cyprus would likely be “upwards” of 15 bln euros, according to a note from the Investment Bank of Greece, part of the Popular bank Group. Cyprus formally applied for financial support from its EU partners last month, becoming the fifth member in the eurozone to do
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CO Cyprus Opportunity Energy, part of an Israel-Norwegian consortium that bid for two offshore gas exploration licenses in May, has listed on the Cyprus Stock Exchange's Emerging Market sector (NEA). The company listed 8.4 mln shares on Tuesday trading at 1.25 euros each (USD 1.53) giving it a market cap of 10.49 mln euros (USD
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Hallenic Bank announced an increase in its share capital by 46.8 mln euros through a rights issue that will result in 271.9 mln new shares this week. This comes on the back of a first quarter profit of 8 mln euros. Hellenic posted a loss of 99.5 mln euros last year after the writedown of
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