Harris Georgiades

Cyprus has fully repaid a loan it secured from Russia in 2011, its finance minister said on Monday, a debt assumed by the island's former communist-led administration to keep it afloat at the peak of a financing crisis.

Cyprus aims to be among the first countries to regulate aspects of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said on Wednesday, addressing the Cyprus Blockchain Summit in Nicosia.

Cyprus' finance minister says the island nation's economy is on track to grow by 3.5 percent in 2019, double the European Union average.
Harris Georgiades said Wednesday that all economic sectors will register growth this year in a "more sustainable way."

Cyprus' finance minister says new bond issues will save the country money by helping to pay off the remainder of a 2.5 billion-euro ($2.8 billion) Russian loan more quickly.

Cyprus is considering repaying early the remainder of a 2.5 billion euro ($2.83 billion) loan that Russia granted the island nation in 2012 amid a financial crisis.

Cyprus's finance minister says he'll leave the post he's held since 2013 by the end of the year.
Harris Georgiades said Friday his decision had nothing to do with the findings of an inquiry that partly blamed him for the demise of the country's bad loan-laden Co-operative Bank.

An inquiry into the demise of Cyprus's Cooperative bank on Wednesday faulted senior executives for bad judgment, inaction and ineptitude in dealing with a mountain of bad loans, while blaming the finance minister for failing to take corrective actions.

France and Cyprus took full advantage of a market supercharged by expectations of more monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank to print syndicated bonds on Tuesday.

France had garnered a maximum of 33.5 billion euros of demand for a 7-billion-euro 30-year bond sale, a lead manager told Reuters, before pricing the deal at seven basis points over its outstanding 2048 bonds.

Cyprus' finance minister says his government is tightening rules for the country's lucrative scheme granting passports to wealthy investors, making it ineligible to anyone who has already been rejected by another European Union country running similar plans.

Cypriot Minister of Finance Harris Georgiades and British High Commissioner to Cyprus Stephen Lillie signed Wednesday a protocol amending the Convention for the Elimination of Double Taxation between the two countries concerning pensions.