Dinos Kakkouras, President of the Association of Travel Agents (ACTA, has said that those involved in the travel industry believe that this year’s tourist season is set to close on a positive note. Kakkouras said that initial estimates of a 25% drop in tourist arrivals from Russia seem to have been overturned in that the

Officials from the Troika of international lenders said that Cyprus was on track with its economic adjustment programme following a €10 bln bailout plan in 2013, and that no new fiscal measures were needed, but that some issues, such as privatisation and the extremely high levels of non-performing loans were still a concern. Senior officials

‘Cans For Kids’, a volunteer-based charity set up in 1990 to raise funds for hospitals from the sale of recycled cans, has so far collected more than 25 mln cans, according to co-founder and Vice President, Rosie Charalambous. She said that the combination of raising awareness about recycling aluminium tins and the concept for volunteerism,

The European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Friday that the cost of not reaching a solution to the island’s 41-year division is far greater than that of a potential solution and called on all sides involved in the talks to seize the moment and keep up the momentum, initiated by the two community leaders

FBME said that the U.S. Treasury’s FinCEN ruling on Thursday to maintain it as a “primary money laundering concern” has failed to consider the evidence of forensic investigations and reports, and makes allegations which the bank says are unwarranted. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a final rule saying that according to “Special measure

 * New CEO expected in 2 weeks * The sale of Russian subsidiary Uniastrum to a smaller bank for €7 mln will be credit positive for the Bank of Cyprus, according to Moody’s, a transaction that will incur an accounting loss of €29 mln but will help reduce its risk-weighted assets significantly. Having over-exposed the

The NK Shacolas Group, the largest retail operator in Cyprus, has sold its two commercial properties in Nicosia to the Johannesburg-listed Atterbury Property Group for €194 mln. This continues Group founder Nicos Shacolas’s love affair with South Africa, having sold its controlling stake in the island’s second mobile operator to the MTN Group. The funds

The Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering watchdog said that Cyprus banks seem to have made significant progress in banking checks and will report on its next assessment in September. Money laundering – the process through which criminals give an apparently legitimate origin to proceeds of crime – is an expanding and increasingly international phenomenon. Current