Neophytou promises modernised airports by 2006

TRAVELLERS to and from Cyprus should be enjoying modern airports by 2006, the Communications Minister said yesterday.

Speaking after a closed Communications and Finance Committees meeting yesterday, Averoff Neophytou said, "I am optimistic that we will go forward with a new method of self-financing. I am confident that by the end of 2005, start of 2006, we will have modern airports with modern management and I do not rule out, provided that everything goes well, that we will have started work by the end of 2001 or 2002."

Neophytou added: "There is a joint opinion that we need to move forward quickly. The House agrees that we have to abandon outdated models and move forward to a new system and new models."

The Minister said the agreed method of self-financing airports gave the government two options: the first would see a private investor carrying out the necessary changes and management of the airports, with the property later transferred to the state.

The second was for a limited company to be formed where a strategic investor received a share of the property in the framework of the changes being made.

Neophytou said the House Committees had been given a detailed briefing on the two possibilities and that a final decision would lie with the House.

He also said that a written account of each method would be presented to the Committees in a week.

"Although, in our humble opinion, we see advantages in the formation of a limited company, we have started to understand the House’s sensitivity for their not to be a removal of state property, so we will respect any approach the body takes."

Currently, the airports are fully run by the state.

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.