Accelerating the reduction of non-performing loans continues to be a key objective, a senior Central Bank official said recently, noting however that a new legal framework that could have helped is largely unenforceable.

Cyprus’s economy expanded 3.9% in the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to the same period the previous year, and a seasonally adjusted 3.9%, the statistical service said.

The unemployment rate in the last three months of 2017 fell to 10.1%, from 12.8% in the fourth quarter of 2016, the statistical service said citing its labour force survey.

Construction output is expected to pick up further as building permits for 2017 show a 47% increase in the construction area of projects that received the go-ahead from local authorities, to 1,542,663 square metres, compared to 2016, the statistical service said.

Israel expects a decision to go ahead with the construction of a 2,000 kilometre pipeline linking vast eastern Mediterranean gas resources to Europe to be made by early 2019, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told Reuters.

Cyprus last week paid €312.5m to the Russian Federation as a first instalment of a €2.5bn loan agreed more than six years ago and restructured in 2013, a Finance Ministry source said.

The administrator of the defunct Cyprus Popular Bank has received an offer from a Maltese fund to buy its stake in Malta’s Lombard Bank, a move favoured by the regulator.

Property transactions rose 46% to 666 in February 2018 compared to the respective month of 2017, mainly on strong performance of the real estate market in Paphos, the lands department said.