‘State doing its utmost to support foreign investors’

CYPRUS IS doing its utmost to support foreign investors on the island, Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides said yesterday.

In an address to the European Conference of Baker Tilly International, in Paphos, read out by Registrar of Companies Spyros Kokkinos, Paschalides emphasised the state’s commitment to safeguarding and enhancing Cyprus’ competitiveness as a cost-effective platform for international business.

“Our vision is to continue building on the strengths of our leading knowledge-based and export-oriented service industries. However, the pursuit of this strategic goal is currently being tested under the impact of the ongoing international financial and economic crisis”, Paschalides said in the address.

He said the state “was doing its utmost to give meaningful support to foreign investors and to service providers”, especially through its ‘One Stop Shop’ which operates at the Commerce Ministry and was being upgraded and renamed as a ‘Point of Single Contact for Businesses’.

In addition to Paschalides, Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis, and House President Marios Garoyian, spoke at the opening.

The 2011 Baker Tilly International EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Conference opened yesterday at the Aphrodite Hills Resort.

In the presence of more than 200 delegates and guests, Marios Klitou, Chief Executive Officer of Baker Tilly said: “I’m very proud to have been given the opportunity to host the EMEA conference of Baker Tilly International in Cyprus.  We have worked hard in achieving this, as we recognise the importance of promoting our network but also our country”.

The conference ends after today’s session, which will include such speakers as Michalis Sarris, the former Finance Minister, and others.

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.