General government primary balance recorded a surplus of €466.5m (2.7% of GDP) in 2015 compared to €455,2m (2.6% of GDP) in 2014, the announcement said this week.

The Public Debt Management Office that total revenue exhibited a negative rate of growth of around 0.6%, reaching €6,886m compared to €6,924m 2014, an outcome mainly attributed to a lower Central Bank dividend received this year compared to the one received during April 2014, by about €30m.

Total expenditure reached €6,9m, remaining unchanged compared to total expenditure of the year before.

Intermediate consumption and compensation of employees exhibited a decline of the order of 1.4%, 2.9% respectively, whereas interest payments and gross fixed capital formation exhibited an increase of the order of 10% and 4.5% respectively.

Yields in the Treasury Bills market continued to drop during the first auctions of 2016, the Public Debt Management Office said.

In the latest 13-week T-Bill auction on the 4th of January (value date 8th of January) Cyprus sold €120 m of T-Bills with an average yield of 0.65%, it added, noting that demand remains quite healthy with bids in that particular auction exceeding €200m.

Due to the very high demand from domestic investors for bonds of the Republic the Public Debt Management Office proceeded with issuing two domestic bonds in January. The two bonds had maturity of 2 and 7 years and were issued via auction with value date the 18th of January.

Source: InCyprus