Cypriot Nobel prize winner optimistic about economic recovery

THE CYPRIOT economy has good prospects of recovering, particularly in the wake of the island’s hydrocarbons’ find, Nobel Prize winner, Christophoros Pissarides said today.

Addressing an event organised by the House in his honour, Pissarides said Cyprus had every reason to hope for recovery. With the natural gas find, this could be accomplished in the next two to three years, he said.

Referring to the high percentage of unemployment globally, he said the world economy must first recover before dealing with the issue of unemployment.

Unfortunately, he said, Europe’s economy was facing the worst issues in this year, adding that until now, no concrete solution had been found to deal with it.

In his comments, House President Yiannakis Omirou thanked Pissarides, for putting Cyprus on the international map.

He said the economist – who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, jointly with Dale Mortensen and Peter A. Diamond, in 2010, for their contribution to the theory of search frictions and macroeconomics – had “made us all proud”.

Omirou added, “(Pissarides) honoured our island internationally and our Cyprus entered their international map of science”.

The House President said the economist’s international expertise and knowledge could help Cyprus recover from the economic crisis.

With unemployment on the rise, he added, Pissarides’ formula to combine the number of unemployed people with the number of vacant jobs and degree of supply and demand in the labour market, could help Cyprus emerge from the crisis.

Pissarides was a very ambitious child from Nicosia who aimed high and eventually achieved a very successful career abroad, he said. “So the House of Representatives decided to honour Nobel Prize winner Christoforos Pissarides, who proved that children’s dreams don’t fade away as we grow up and wit hard work, they can become a reality,” said Omirou.