Cyprus Business Now

The board of directors of the state-owned Cyprus Asset Management Company (Kedipes) on Thursday announced that they have decided on a new payment to the state to the tune of €80 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, as part of the Kedipes’ ongoing repayment of state aid.

As stated in the company’s announcement, this is the fourth cash payment for the year 2022, with the total amount for the current year amounting to €310 million.

Since the start of Kedipes’ operations, the total amount of state aid repayment in cash has amounted to €880 million.

Last month, Kedipes chairman Lambros Papadopoulos said that frequent interventions in the foreclosure framework will negatively affect the company’s ability to generate cash inflows, in reference to the ongoing suspension of foreclosures.

“For us, foreclosures are a tool, not an end in itself, but starting the foreclosure process we very often find consensual solutions, especially when we talk about strategic defaulters,” Papadopoulos said at the time.

Unemployment in Cyprus increased to 6.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2022, compared with 6.6 per cent during the corresponding period of last year, according to a report released on Thursday by the Cyprus Statistical Service (Cystat).

The number of unemployed persons amounted to 32,868 in the third quarter of 2022, compared with 31,355 persons in the third quarter of 2021.

The labour force in the third quarter of 2022 amounted to 486,492 persons or 65.4 per cent of the population (males 71,3 per cent, women 60,0 per cent) in comparison to 472,314 persons (64,6 per cent) in the corresponding quarter of 2021.

The number of employed persons rose to 453,625 and the employment rate was 61 per cent (males 67,4 per cent, women 55,2 per cent) in comparison to 440,959 persons (60,3 per cent) in the corresponding quarter of 2021.

In terms of employment figures, for the age group 20-64, the employment rate stood at 78.3 per cent, with the rate for males amounting to 84.8 per cent and for women to 72.3 per cent.

In the corresponding quarter of 2021 the rate was 77.2 per cent (males 83.2 per cent, women 71.5 per cent).

Employment in the age group 55-64 amounted to 65.2 per cent, compared with 65.5 per cent in the corresponding quarter of 2021.

Moreover, according to the report, the largest percentage of employed persons was in Services with 80.5 per cent of the labour force, followed by Manufacturing with 17.2 per cent and Agriculture with 2.3 per cent. The corresponding shares in the third quarter of 2021 amounted to 79.9 per cent in Services, 17.3 per cent in Manufacturing and 2.8 per cent in Agriculture.

The share of part-time employment to total employment was 9.8 per cent or 44,631 persons (males 8.3 per cent, women 11.6 per cent) with the corresponding rates for the third quarter of 2021 at 11.0 per cent (males 9.4 per cent, women 12.7 per cent).

Furthermore, 89.1 per cent or 404,013 of the total employed persons were employees, of whom 11.5 per cent (46,636 persons) had a temporary job. In the corresponding quarter of 2021 employees accounted for 88.1 per cent of total employment of which 13.0 per cent had a temporary job.

The unemployment rate in young persons aged 15-24 years old rose to 19.9 per cent of the labour force of the same age group (males 18.0 per cent, women 21.6 per cent) compared with 14.5 per cent (males 14.1 per cent, women 14.9 per cent) in the respective quarter of last year.

In terms of the duration of unemployment, 56.2 per cent of the total unemployed persons searched for a job for a period of less than 6 months, 14.9 per cent for a period of 6-11 months, while a percentage of 28.9 per cent were long-term unemployed.

The corresponding rates for the third quarter of 2021 stood at 42.8 per cent, 24.3 per cent and 32.9 per cent respectively.

The Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) ended Thursday, December 15 with losses.

The general Cyprus Stock Market Index was at 88.62 points at 12:46 during the day, reflecting a drop of 0.44 per cent over the previous day of trading.

The FTSE / CySE 20 Index was at 53.40 points, representing a decrease of 0.43 per cent.

The total value of transactions came up to €55,923.

In terms of the sub-indexes, the main, hotel and alternative indexes fell by 0.4 per cent, 0.38 per cent and 0.24 per cent respectively, while the investment firm index remained unchanged.

The biggest investment interest was attracted by Vassiliko Cement Works Public Company (no change), the Bank of Cyprus (-1.14 per cent), the Cyprus Cement Company (no change), Atlantic Insurance (-1.27 per cent), and KEO PLC (no change).