Klerides: CSE should be privatised

FINANCE Minister Takis Klerides said yesterday he favoured the eventual privatisation of the Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE), adding he had already requested a study on the issue.

But Klerides told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) it was not yet the right time to privatise the CSE, as the institution was still “in its infancy”.

The minister added that privatisation should be carefully planned, so that it could take place in about two years.

He said that the necessary legislation currently being prepared by the Finance Ministry would “take into consideration that at some point in time the CSE must be privatised, so that amendments to the bills could be made”.

Klerides said that when the CSE was privatised, the state could participate in the institution’s share capital, by holding a significant percentage of stocks.

Asked if CSE bills were being delayed because of the prospect of privatisation, Klerides said that the government was preparing and tabling bills so that there would be no delays, “even if after a year or a year and a half amendments will have to be made”.

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.