Foreign Investments in Cyprus

General overview

There are over 1,000 international businesses in Cyprus at the moment and the main priority for the Cyprus Government is to attract even more foreign investments. As a consequence, the Cypriot government established the Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency (CIPA) in order to promote the country as an attractive choice for entrepreneurs from all over the world. In 2010, the World Economic Forum placed Cyprus on the 40th position out of 139 countries in terms of global competitiveness. 

Jobs in Cyprus

According to Eurostat, the workforce decreased by 0.7% in 2009. For the first quarter of 2011, the number of employees in Cyprus amounted to 379,700 persons, of which 208,200 males and 171,500 females. The sector of services accounts for the largest percentage of the Cypriot workforce, with a rate of 71.2%. The number of unemployed citizens was 30,200, according to the results of the Labour Force Survey carried out at the beginning of 2011 in Cyprus. As a conclusion, the unemployment rate amounted to 7.4% of the labour force. 

Figures

The 2009 Cypriot Gross Domestic Product was estimated to 16.7 billion EUR, with services and tourism contributing to 79.6% of the GDP and 17.9% from industry and construction. 

In 2010, according to the Central Bank of Cyprus, the state attracted 3,600 million EUR as foreign investments, less than in 2009, when Cyprus had a foreign investment inflow of 4,122 EUR, considered a record due to the investments in retail and financial sectors on the island. The total amount of foreign capital invested in Cyprus was estimated to 2,764 million EUR in 2008 and 1,626 million EUR in 2007. 

The most attractive sector for entrepreneurs outside Cyprus was financial intermediation. In 2009, this field was followed by trade and repairs and real estate activities as the recipients of capital from abroad. European countries were the main sources of foreign investments in Cyprus in 2008, according to the Central Bank of Cyprus, with over 2,357 million EUR brought to the Cypriot economy. Greece is by far the main source of foreign capital in Cyprus, with a contribution of 23.6% of the total foreign investments, followed by Russia and the United Kingdom.