Foreign investment in Cyprus driven by property
Interior minister Socratis Hasikos said the figures were based on hard fact and not simply hypothesis, as he praised the amount of money coming into the economy at a time when much of the world is still experiencing some form of financial crisis. Following a meeting at the Palace between President Nicos Anastasiades and leaders of the Cyprus Land and Building Developers Association (LBDA), Mr Hasikos said the traditional construction and real estate sectors had been hugely positive for Cyprus in the final part of the year.
"It would be no exaggeration to say that the lion’s share of the hundreds of millions that came to Cyprus through sales to third-country nationals seeking permanent residency or [Cypriot] citizenship, was achieved through the efforts of these people,” Hasikos said in reference to property developers.
He went on to say that most of this investment was made by non-EU nationals who were looking to make the move to Cyprus to live there on a permanent basis. Meanwhile, there are also large numbers of people who are attempting to make the move in order to obtain a Cypriot passport.
However, it was not all good news for the Cypriot property market towards the end of the year, with the latest published figures from the Inland Revenue Department showing that sales volumes fell for the sixth-consecutive year in 2013. It marked a new low as the volume of transactions dropped to 80 per cent lower than the peak seen in 2007, before the financial crisis set in across the eurozone.
Article by +Peter Mindenhall on behalf of Propertyshowrooms.com