Confident of better ratings and cheaper funding as it exits a eurozone bailout, Cyprus is wary of planning new borrowing to help fund any reunification and may not need it, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said.

Cyprus might soon be excluded from the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme because its credit rating is below investment grade and it is likely to exit its bailout programme at the end of March 2016, an ECB spokesman said recently.

A subsidiary of the Russian airline Siberia 7 is set to open in Cyprus by the end of 2016, according to news reports.

The strong increase in property transactions reported recently by the department of lands and surveys is the result of tax breaks offered to buyers as well as special incentives to foreign purchasers, professionals said.

Eurogroup Finance Ministers are soon expected to seal the completion of Cyprus’ adjustment programme, three years after its chaotic bailout in 2013.

Projects worth more than €300 million will be carried out for 2016–2018, Transport Minister Marios Demetriades said recently.

Three years after the financial crisis and as Cyprus is due to exit its bailout programme, the banking sector has shed 2,000, or 20% of its employees, plus 25% of branches.

Bank of Cyprus has set up a Real Estate Management Unit (REMU) deploying another tool that would assist the island`s largest lender to facilitate loan restructuring and manage its big commercial real estate loan portfolio more efficiently.

The Turnover Value Index of Transport and Storage for the fourth quarter of 2015 recorded an increase of 4.6% compared tothe corresponding quarter of 2014.

Limassol appears on a new list of the best places to live, taking 88th spot on Mercer’s18th annual Quality of Living survey.