Cyprus, the tiny Mediterranean island bailed out a year ago, remains "in difficulty...but not as bad as one would have expected," its finance minister Harris Georgiades told CNN during an interview in the capital city Nicosia.
The country, which was given a 10 billion euro ($13.7 billion) injection by the European Union and IMF ago after its banking system collapsed, was the smallest of the euro economies to get help during the bloc's financial crisis.
Unlike the Greek economy which has seen more than a quarter of its GDP wiped out during the past five years, the finance minister said that Cyprus will lose about half that. The European Commission is now forecasting growth in 2015 after a steep contraction of 4.8% this year and 6% percent last year.
According to Georgiades, the situation is "bad and I have never tried to paint a rosy picture." The country has been "dealing with shortcomings and there were significant shortcomings, we have to admit."
No comments:
Post a Comment