Keravnos said the budget, which will be submitted to the House of Representatives for approval in December, was designed to support development while maintaining fiscal discipline.
The 2027 budget is approximately €470 million higher than the 2026 budget.
“Growth in 2027 is expected to be around 2.9 per cent,” Keravnos said, adding that there were encouraging indications that it could exceed 3 per cent.
Unemployment, meanwhile, is expected to remain at current levels associated with full employment and continue on a downward trend.
The government is forecasting a fiscal surplus equivalent to 2.8 per cent of GDP in 2027, up from 2.3 per cent in 2026.
The bilateral meeting focused on issues of shared interest, including the competitiveness of the shipping industry, the green transition and the challenges currently facing global shipping, with both sides reaffirming their commitment to strengthening cooperation between the two countries.
Hadjimanolis said particular attention was given to implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between their maritime administrations, with the two sides agreeing how to take the agreement forward.
The agreement was signed in February 2023 between the Cyprus Shipping Deputy Ministry and the UK Department for Transport. Its scope covers maritime safety and security, decarbonisation, ship-source pollution, seafarers’ employment and welfare, maritime education and training, research and innovation, digitalisation and cyber security.
Speaking at a conference on pay transparency and job evaluation at the University of Cyprus in Nicosia, Christodoulou said greater openness over how salaries are set would be central to tackling differences in pay between women and men.
“Businesses should not view pay transparency as an administrative ‘burden’, but as an opportunity,” she said, adding that equality across an organisation could improve employee satisfaction and strengthen both profitability and competitiveness.
The strategy, centred on the message “Stability with Prospects”, was presented during a working meeting with members of the Limassol business community on Tuesday at the Parklane Resort & Spa.
Invest Cyprus said the initiative was designed to project a modern image of Cyprus that combined economic stability and credibility with growth prospects, innovation and a high quality of life.
The agency said the strategy sought to strengthen Cyprus’ international positioning as a reliable partner in a complex region, a country developing a future-oriented economy and a location where talent and quality of life come together.
Speaking on Tuesday at the University of Cyprus, in what was the first in a series of public lectures and open discussions, titled “Artificial Intelligence Today and Tomorrow – Risk or Opportunity; Ally or Enemy?”, Damianou said he did not believe AI would eventually take control of the world or destroy humanity.
“I want to start directly with my own answer to the question in the title of these lectures,” Damianou said.
He rejected the concept of a technological singularity, saying he did not believe AI would inevitably become powerful enough to dominate humanity.
“I do not believe in the ‘technological singularity’ – the famous singularity,” he stated.
The commission also confirmed the appointment of Loukas Lagoudis as vice chairman, with Andrea Moundis Savvides also joining the commission’s board.
Karatzias returned to the leadership of CySEC after previously serving as the organisation’s vice chairman from September 2021 until April 2024.
From May 2024 until his appointment as chairman, he served as an executive member of the board of directors of the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC).
That shift ran through much of the discussion at the 6th Cyber Security Conference in Nicosia this week, where regulators, technology specialists and business executives repeatedly returned to the same point: having policies, procedures and security software is no longer enough.
What matters increasingly is whether an organisation can spot an attack, make decisions quickly and keep operating when systems come under pressure.
Held at the Hilton Nicosia under the theme “From Compliance to Cyber Resilience”, the conference put the question simply, asking “Can your organisation withstand a cyber incident, and continue to operate?”
The deadline, announced by the Customs department and the Department of Information Technology Services (DITS), follows an earlier extension intended to give companies more time to complete the technical changeover.
Businesses still sending UCC B2G messages through the old gateway must ensure their systems are connected to CY Connect and working in the live production environment before the cut-off.
In practical terms, the change concerns economic operators whose own IT systems communicate directly with Customs, rather than businesses simply logging into an online government service.
Under the EU’s Union Customs Code, or UCC, economic operators include businesses involved in activities covered by customs legislation, potentially ranging from importers and exporters to freight forwarders, customs representatives and carriers.
Eurostat data published this week showed that young people in Cyprus left their parents’ home at an average age of 27, compared with 26.3 years across the EU.
The Cyprus figure came despite a youth employment rate of 72.3 per cent among people aged 20 to 29, well above the EU average of 65.5 per cent.
Only nine countries recorded higher youth employment rates than Cyprus, led by Iceland at 85.3 per cent and the Netherlands at 84.0 per cent.
The permits had a combined value of €428.2 million and covered 352,126 square metres, providing for the construction of 1,847 dwelling units.
During the January to May 2026 period, the number of permits reached 3,650, compared with 2,764 a year earlier, representing an increase of 32.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, their total value rose by 43.9 per cent, from €1.46bn to €2.10bn, while the authorised floor area expanded by 43.1 per cent, from 1.19m to 1.70m square metres.
The increase in Cyprus was above the 3.1 per cent rise recorded across the euro area and the 3.2 per cent increase across the European Union during the same period.
Cystat data showed that the rise in Cyprus was driven by both wages and salaries and other labour costs, with hourly wages increasing by 3.9 per cent compared with the second quarter of 2025 and non-wage costs rising by 3.6 per cent.
The overall increase was also slightly faster than in the first quarter of 2026, when hourly labour costs in Cyprus had risen by 3.4 per cent year on year.
Issued as the ninth series of 2026, the short-term debt instruments carry a nominal value of €1,000 each, bringing the total value of the issue to €50,000,000.
The Treasury bills were allocated following a government auction conducted on September 14, 2026.
The bourse has also approved the simultaneous insertion of the securities into the Central Depository and Central Registry.
Ioulianou warned that the problem was not the September deadline itself, “but the industry’s habit of waiting until the last possible moment”, adding that this “can push critical funding and compliance decisions to the brink and leave owners, managers and compliance providers carrying significant exposure”.
According to Ioulianou, operators must also surrender EUAs covering their verified emissions before the end of September following the first FuelEU Maritime compliance cycle.
He explained that current practices between owners, charterers, managers and intermediaries can leave significant exposure unresolved until shortly before the deadline.
In a regulatory announcement on Tuesday, Safe Bulkers said Moutoulas Shipping Corporation, an entity controlled by and closely associated with Hajioannou, acquired 1.5m common shares at €6.70 each on September 11.
The transaction confirms Hajioannou’s final participation in the placement, which had already been outlined when the company completed the accelerated bookbuilding process last week. His initial subscription was for 2m shares but the allocation was reduced to 1.5m to allow shares to be distributed to other investors, according to the company’s earlier filing.
Safe Bulkers raised €80.4m in gross proceeds through the placement of 12m new common shares at €6.70 each, with the net proceeds intended to strengthen liquidity, finance its existing newbuilding programme and potentially support further newbuild orders or second-hand vessel acquisitions, as well as general corporate purposes.
Operating profit rose to €19.61 million in the six months to June 30, 2026, from €18.03 million in the first half of 2025, with Logicom attributing the improvement mainly to higher gross profit, lower administrative expenses and reduced expected credit losses.
However, profit attributable to shareholders dropped to €16.83m, from €27.74m a year earlier, a decline of €10.92m.
Logicom said the fall in shareholder profit was mainly linked to lower other income, higher net finance costs, a reduced share of profit from joint ventures and a significant reduction in the negative goodwill recognised from investment acquisitions.
The Greek lender purchased 3,152,886 shares traded on Euronext Athens at an average price of €4.7160 per share, according to an announcement issued this week.
The purchases were made under the share buy-back programme approved by Alpha Bank’s Annual General Meeting of shareholders on June 26, 2026.
The bank had previously announced the implementation of the programme on July 31.
Alpha Bank purchased 1,058,080 shares on September 7 at an average price of €4.7320, with the transactions valued at €5.01m.
The bank announced the changes this week, following approvals from the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Single Supervisory Mechanism and registration of amendments to its articles of association with Greece’s General Commercial Registry.
The 11,580,849 treasury shares, representing 1.27 per cent of the bank’s share capital, were acquired between June 4, 2025 and March 27, 2026 under a share buyback programme approved by shareholders.
NBG paid a weighted average of €12.6171 per share for the shares, bringing the total cost of the purchases to €146.12m.
The shares, each with a nominal value of €1, are due to be cancelled on September 17, 2026.
The company said this week that the purchases were made under a programme announced on June 4, 2026.
Allwyn paid an average of €13.1937 per share across the five-day period, based on the aggregate consideration of €9,098,681.94.
The largest daily purchase was made on September 11, when the company bought 149,282 shares for €1.98m at an average price of €13.2927 per share.
The meeting brought together Oev president George Pantelides and senior CERA management to review the conclusions of a high-level workshop on reducing electricity costs organised by Oev on July 15, which was attended by representatives of all relevant stakeholders.
The discussions focused on issues that have emerged during the first year of operation of the Competitive Electricity Market, including the quality and timely availability of meter data, market settlement procedures and the need for greater transparency and predictability in charges.
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