The Cyprus economy enters a path of recovery and growth, with private initiative, employees and our companies as its pillars, Minister of Finance Constantinos Petrides stresses in a written statement on the GDP growth rate for the second quarter of 2021.
The Minister expresses conviction that with proper financial management, the implementation of the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience, which includes significant reforms and investments, the country will be able to restore economic activity and employment conditions to the positive rates that existed before the pandemic.
Referring to the flash estimate of the Statistical Service of Cyprus that the economy grew by 12.8% in the second quarter of 2021, he says that this is significantly better than expected and that in 2021 it will accelerate with a strong growth rate that will exceed the initial estimate of the Ministry of Finance for a growth rate of 3.7%.
The Minister points out that this means very positive prospects for the next quarters of the year and shows the efficacy of the measures taken by the government during the pandemic.
The growth rate of the Cyprus economy, he adds, will be one of the few in the EU that will cover the losses in the national income in 2020.
He notes that Cyprus has managed in 2020 – the most difficult year of the pandemic – to reduce GDP decline to only 5.1%, a significantly better performance than the average recession in the EU and incomparably better than other countries with a significant tourism sector, despite the initial estimates by the European Commission of a recession of 7.7%.