Offshore congress victim of unsettled markets

By Jean Christou

TURMOIL in the world’s economies has forced local organisers of an international business conference to postpone the event.

Cyprus was to host the conference, Business Centres of the Future, advising other countries how to compete as a successful business centre.

But organisers said yesterday that foreign businessmen who has shown an interest in taking part had decided that with global markets being so unsettled it was better for them to remain at home “where they can make decisions”. “The conference has just been postponed, not cancelled,” said the organisers.

The event was being organised by the Central Bank, the Bar Association, the Offshore Enterprises Association, the Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Employers Federation.

The conference was unusual in the sense that it was designed to advise other countries on how to be a successful offshore centre, putting them in direct competition with Cyprus.

Over 100 foreign delegates were expected at the conference.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.