J sitting next to me in reception reading, online, Cypriot financial newspaper, The Financial Mirror, with the following indicators of the country's financial distress:
➡️Cyprus Airways closed down on Saturday after the troubled national carrier's last flight was operated from Athens to Larnaca on midnight Friday, ending decades of squandering public money and abusing EU aid.
➡️The Registrar of Companies and Official Receiver has struck off 84,780 companies to date due to lack of reporting or wilful liquidation as some were dormant and had no directors. [The decision is probably the result of the EUR 300 annual tax levied on all companies in recent years, as part of the cash-strapped government’s efforts to find additional sources of revenue, following the EUR 10 bln bailout plan imposed by the Troika of international lenders.]
➡️Deposit rates in Cyprus remained the highest within the Eurozone in November, with lending rates the sixth lowest among the Euro member state, according to Central Bank of Cyprus data. [The interest rate for household deposits of up to one year decreased to 2.59% compared with 2.67% in the previous month, compared to the average Eurozone rate of 1.05%. The interest rate for non-financial companies rose to 2.53% compared with 2.49% in the previous month, the highest in the euro area, while the corresponding average of the Eurozone was 0.41%]
.➡️..according to Eurostat, Cyprus’ rate of unemployment marginally rose to 16.8% in
November compared to 16.5% in October "1.81% m-o-m) and 16.6% in November 2013 (1.21% y-o-y).
The age group most affected was the under-25 (at 34.8%), while the Eurozone and EU unemployment remained unchanged on a monthly basis at 11.5% and 10%, respectively.
Cyprus ranked third amongst all EU counties, while the highest joblessness rates were observed in Greece (25.7%) and Spain (23.9%).
Of course the interest rates are not distressing to the population, but may be a part of the problem. And the Cyprus Mail columnist who goes by the name of Patroclos is scornful on the topic of Cyprus Airways' demise:
➡️We believe it would be better to celebrate its 68-year life during which it made quite a few of our countrymen very rich, provided well-paid, unproductive employment to thousands of losers who could command only the minimum wage in the open market, gave social standing to countless nobodies appointed to its board and allowed union bosses to secure privileges for their members that would have been unheard of in any sane country.
It was very successful as an employment agency even though it cost the taxpayer in excess of €100 million to keep going in the last few years, not to mention the rip-off air-fares we were forced to pay in the pre-open-skies days when it engaged in price collusion, as a matter of policy, with other airlines. But the Cypriot taxpayer has always been stupidly generous and feels no resentment over his money being wasted on one of the world’s most badly-managed airlines.
Meanwhile our own financial obligations are remembered. The month's rent was is due, entailing a stop at a bank willing to dispense at least €500 in one go, thus limiting the access charges. Fortunately there is one, the Hellenic Bank, down the road. Some give as little as €200, and running out of money at the cash points is not unknown. But we're in luck.
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