Low-cost airline Blue Air announced recently the arrival at Larnaca Airport of a second aircraft.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development proposed a Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for the Automatic Exchange of Information with the aim of improving international tax compliance and preventing tax evasion, through the automatic exchange of information between countries that implement CRS, one of which is the Republic of Cyprus.

The Cyprus International Institute of Management (CIIM) has unveiled an April 2016 workshop for people interested or in the process of setting up an international operation from scratch or expanding existing operations to new markets, which can present a major challenge at times.

Tourism Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis is in Russia, where he will attend the Moscow International Travel & Tourism Exhibition (MITT) and have meetings with Russian officials on energy and tourism.

The Industrial Turnover Index for the period January–December 2015, showed a decrease of 2,1% compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, according to recent data released by the Statistical Service of Cyprus.

Cyprus decisively continues to reform and restructure and is confident that it will overcome the remaining challenges, said Government Spokesman Nikos Christodoulides recently.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is stepping up its support to Cypriot exporters and importers with a €20 million trade facility to Hellenic Bank under the EBRD’s Trade Facilitation Programme (TFP).

Almost €300 million has been spent in credit card transactions by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots since the checkpoints opened in 2003.

Cyprus saw a spike in tourism reservations from the German market at one of the industry’s biggest and most important tourism exhibitions – the ITB in Germany.

The job vacancy rate in Cyprus was 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2015, up from 0.3% in the same quarter of 2014, placing Cyprus fourth lowest amongst the EU28, according to recent figures published by Eurostat.