Cyprus' GDP increased by 4% in the first quarter of 2018, over the corresponding quarter of 2017, higher than the initial estimation.
 
According to data released on Friday by the Statistical Service of Cyprus, the growth rate of the economy in the first quarter of 2018 is positive and is estimated at 4% based on seasonally and working day adjusted data, compared to the corresponding quarter of 2017.

On May 15, the Statistical Service issued a preliminary estimate that expected GDP to grow by 3.8% in the first quarter of 2018.

The increase of the GDP growth rate is mainly attributed to the sectors: "Hotels and Restaurants", "Retail and Wholesale Trade", "Construction", "Manufacturing", "Professional, scientific and technical activities" and "Administrative and support service activities".

Compared to the fourth quarter of 2017 GDP grew by 1%, higher than the preliminary estimate by the Statistical Service on 15 May 2018 which was 0,8%.

Source: StockWatch

Cyprus will benefit from the reform of the Common European Asylum System, as the country has already surpassed its share under the new method of redistribution of asylum seekers, according to Interior Minister Konstantinos Petrides. The Minister of Interior, Konstantinos Petrides, represented today Cyprus in the works of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council ( Home Affairs agenda ) held yesteday in Luxembourg, where the main topics were the effective management of the high migratory pressures in the Member States, as well as the revision of the European asylum system.

As far as asylum is concerned, the Interior Minister in his intervention has maintained a clear position in favor of the establishment of a Common Asylum System, which will be fair and balanced and will in fact support Member States of the front line.

In this context, the Minister stressed that it has been possible to include in the text (pending the EU leaders approval) the introduction of concrete measures to alleviate the pressure of frontline countries, including Cyprus. In the context of the ongoing negotiations, Cyprus has shown a spirit of cooperation, while at the same time highlighting the pressure it faces as a frontline member state.

"This is the first time that the disproportionate burden of the Mediterranean countries is also recognized by legislative provision, which includes measures to redistribute beneficiaries of protection equally between all EU Member States despite the strong reaction of some partners", the Minister explains in a written statement issued after the conclusion of the JHA Council.

According to the Minister, the new method of redistributing asylum seekers tabled will take into account both the size and the population of the Member States, which, he said, "makes Cyprus within the first Member States to benefit from the implementation of these measures, should the agreement be approved by the leaders at the European Council next June, and given that Cyprus has already exceeded its share. "

The Minister notes that the issue will be on the agenda of the European Council summit on 28-29 June and the EU 28 will seek an overall agreement.

The main purpose of the review of the European Asylum System is to harmonize the asylum and reception systems of the Member States, to effectively address the phenomenon of abusive applications by persons using the asylum route for economic migration, to determine the Member State responsible for the examination of asylum applications and the provision of support measures to the first-line Member States, in the form of practical solidarity.

With regard to immigration in general, the Minister, in his written statement, notes that this is an issue directly affecting Cyprus, since migratory pressures in the eastern Mediterranean show a systematic upward trend. Indicatively, it is reported that only for the period January - May 2018, asylum applications were submitted to Cyprus by 2174 people, a significantly higher number than in previous years.

The Minister stressed that a steady and systematic increase in arrivals causes substantial pressure on Cyprus as a first-line member, due to its geographic proximity to the Middle East, and Cyprus therefore attaches great importance to the positive outcome of the negotiations.

Source: Stockwatch

THE official ground-breaking ceremony for the much-anticipated casino resort complex that is due to open west of Limassol in 2021 will be held on June 8, and a group of Cypriot journalists were taken to Macau recently to get a better understanding of how Melco Resorts and Entertainment, a partner in the Integrated Casino Resorts Cyprus Consortium which has the contract to build the Cyprus resort, run their operations in other countries.

As well as several venues dubbed the City of Dreams in Macau, which feature various entertainment options, an array of different types of accommodation, regional and international dining spots, designer brand shopping and, of course, a huge casino, the company has operations in the Philippines and Russia, and is hoping that the Cyprus resort will tap into the lucrative Middle East market.

Designer shopping malls run right round the perimeter of the hotel

Melco CEO Lawrence Ho estimates that, as well as attracting an additional 300,000 tourists a year to the island, the €550 million City of Dreams Mediterranean is expected to account for about four per cent of Cyprus’ GDP and create around 4,000 jobs annually during the construction period. When it is fully operational, the casino will generate approximately 4,500 direct and indirect full-time jobs.

The trip to Macau included a visit to the new flagship hotel for the City of Dreams complex, scheduled to open on June 21: the eye-catching super-luxury Morpheus hotel, designed by the late Dame Zaha Hadid. The building is the world’s first free-form exoskeleton high rise building with sculpted voids and featuring two sky bridges, five different glazing systems and a non-repetitive doubly-curved aluminium cladding. It is, frankly, extraordinary, and reflects Lawrence Ho’s mantra of “can we do this better?”

The Morpheus Hotel was designed by Zaha Hadid

The first thing that strikes you when you arrive in Macau is the glitz: we arrived at night, and the whole city is a glare of garish lights – huge high-rise buildings illuminated from top to bottom, inside and out. We stayed at Studio City, a hotel/casino at the end of the strip surrounded by construction sites (yet more buildings in the offing). The suites are located in the ‘Star Tower’, and the rooms in the ‘Celebrity Tower’. The facilities are five-star and include a Spa that boasts a ‘snow room’ for after your sauna, extensive designer brand shopping malls running around the edge of the building and a large children’s play area with rides and interactive games. Then there’s the Batman 4D Dark Flight and the Golden Reel – the world’s highest figure of 8 Ferris wheel on the front of the building. At the heart of the hotel is the casino, an enormous room packed with baccarat and roulette tables and literally hundreds of slot machines.

The layout of the other hotels in the City of Dreams is similar: at the core are the gaming rooms, accessible from entrances on every side of the hotel, so you are never too far from having a flutter whether you are shopping, eating or just wandering around. The dining options are many: each hotel has a Michelin-starred restaurant (some have two) and it’s clear that the clientele expect the best – and are willing to pay for it. The Cyprus consortium also aims to proffer Michelin-starred dining.

The entertainment offered is high tech, like the Batman Dark Flight, whooshing you through the streets of Gotham City battling the Joker and the caped crusader’s other enemies and the House of Dancing Water, the world’s largest water-based show with a pool that holds 17 million litres of water (that’s more than five Olympic-sized swimming pools).

The Morpheus sky pool

It’s an extraordinary show with acrobats, dancers, divers and motorcyclists performing stunts in this theatre-in-the-round, where the stage is sometimes deep water (the divers at the end leap from a 24-metre-high platform) and sometimes a solid floor, which appears and disappears thanks to eleven hydraulic ten-ton elevators underneath. Performers are winched from the ceiling or fly in from above on bungee-style ribbons or appear from under the water, with the spectacle enhanced by special lighting effects and some 240 fountains which rise up to 18 metres.

Wherever you go in this area of Macau, everything is “bigger” “better” “higher” “brighter”. You certainly need a head for heights looking down from the upper floors of these towering hotels, and the guests seemed uninterested in the swimming pools and outdoor facilities, spending their time in the air-conditioned interior – and, of course, the gaming rooms, which never close.

The brief glimpse we got of old Macau city centre was a world apart: architecture harking back to the Portuguese colonial times and tiny, busy shops jostling for space in charming narrow streets, a far cry from the brash boulevards of Cotai where the casinos are located.

When I spoke to Lawrence Ho I asked him about the necessity of taking local culture into account when he built a new casino, and he agreed it was important. He told me that the Cyprus complex will draw inspiration from Greek mythology: “that’s always very important to us” he said “because we never cookie-cut anything. We are very respectful to the local cultures and also, our guests, when they want to go to a new destination, they don’t want to see the same thing every single time”.

The pros and cons of legalising this type of gambling on the island have been discussed at length since the licence was granted and those in favour point to the jobs it will create and the revenue it will generate. I spoke to the Executive Vice-President & Chief Officer, Human Resources of Melco in Macau, Akiko Takahashi, who enthused about the company’s care of its employees. She explained that Lawrence Ho had “a tremendous commitment to the concept of people” and added “we demonstrate the commitment to people in many things that we do – whether it’s their experience at the heart of house” (ie behind the scenes) “or their internal career opportunity where they feel that they come in for one job but they certainly have the opportunity to progress their career throughout the resort”.

A bathroom in a Star Tower suite

The ‘heart of house’ we visited revealed easy access for job seekers to find what was available, a room where their uniforms were kept after cleaning and whisked on a conveyer to each employee upon a swipe of their card, changing rooms with lockers, a staff canteen where there is a wide choice of meals provided free and adjoining rooms for resting or sleeping and one with rolling movies (this was, after all, Studio City with its Hollywood theme).

Those against gambling often talk about families made destitute by gambling addiction, and when I raised this point I was assured that problem customers can be banned from entering if the family requests this.

City of Dreams Mediterranean will include 136 tables and 1,200 gaming machines, a five-star hotel with luxurious villas and 500 hotel rooms, 11 restaurants and cafeterias and 9,600 square metres of facilities for meetings, conventions, and events. It will also include a 1,200-sq. metre retail area, ‘replicating the streetscape of the old Nicosia city centre’.

It is set to start operating in 2021. In the meantime a temporary facility will open in Limassol this summer followed by satellite casinos in Nicosia, Larnaca, the free Famagusta area and Paphos.

Source: CyprusMail

Uncertainty, energy costs, regulation, skills and access to finance are the major impediments for future investments in Cyprus according to European Investment Bank (EIB) Survey on Investment and Investment Finance for Cyprus in 2017.

The Survey was presented Thursday by EIB Director of Economics Department, Debora Revoltella, during an economic conference in Nicosia, organized by EIB in cooperation with the Nicosia Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The survey also showed that investment activity recovered in Cyprus during 2017, but investment levels were still below the pre-crisis levels. Infrastructure investment is lower relative to the pre-crisis period and corporates undertake the largest part of infrastructure investment in relation to public infrastructure investment.

Regarding the areas of public investment that are a necessary priority over the next 3 years, four in ten firms in Cyprus (38%) cited hospital/health care infrastructure. That figure was above the levels reported in any other EU country, and more than 4 times higher than the EU average of 8%.

Services sector more optimistic

According to the findings, the highest proportion of firms expecting to increase their investment in the current financial year is in services sector. Investment outlook is still positive with no investment contraction expected in 2017. Yet, the outlook was less positive in 2017 relative to 2016.
From the six investment areas asked about, most investment in Cyprus is in machinery and equipment (39%), followed by land, business buildings and infrastructure (22%) and software, data and IT (16%). This pattern is broadly similar to the last survey’s wave as well as to the EU-wide findings.

Similar to the findings of the previous survey, the services sector has by far the highest share of firms investing in land, business buildings and infrastructure (34%).

Among all firms, almost four in ten (39%) developed or introduced new products, processes or services as part of their investment activities. The innovation in Cyprus is mostly at the local level with less than 1% of the companies innovating globally.

Firms in the services sector were more likely than others to exhibit high levels of innovation with 65% of these firms indicated that the products, processes or services were new to the firm or country, while a further 2% provided innovative solutions at the world level.

 In Cyprus, 28% of the firms reported too little investments over the last 3 years. The particular “investment gap” is above the EU average of 15%. It is also the third largest figure across the EU.

Four in ten firms in Cyprus (42%) report operating at or above maximum capacity in the last financial year. The particular figure is below the EU average (53%).

The main obstacles

Around nine in ten firms in Cyprus consider uncertainty about the future (90%) and energy costs (89%) as obstacles to investment activities.
Business regulations and availability of skilled staff were mentioned as barriers to investment by around seven in ten firms on average, and specifically by around 9 in 10 firms in the services sector.

While the overall pattern of results is similar to the EU, some of the investment obstacles are reported more often by firms in Cyprus. These include energy costs, availability of finance and uncertainty about the future.

In Cyprus, the 2017 EIB Investment Survey examined investment by 150 firms and identified a marked improvement in access to external financing. Only 6% of firms surveyed were “financially constrained”, which is slightly under the EU average.

Firms in Cyprus are more likely to have funded investment through internal funds (80%) than external (20%), compared to the EU average figures of 62% and 35% respectively. The particular figure of internal finance is the second largest in the EU. 

Bank loans account for the highest share of external finance (81%) in Cyprus. The particular figure, is the second highest in the EU, and together with the share of other bank finance (17%), it confirms the dominant role of the banking sector in providing external finance to firms in Cyprus.

Small/micro companies demonstrate relatively more diversified sources of external finance than larger firms, with bank loans contributing to 64%.

“While investment slowly recovers, there is still evidence of 20% of firms having no investment plans for the next 3 years, as a sign of some remaining legacy and need of transformation", said Revoltella.

EIB to support energy efficiency

Vice President, European Investment Bank Jonathan Taylor, said that the EIB will continue to support investment both under the investment plan for Europe and with its traditional lending products, to help bring back growth and development and further improve Cyprus’ economic situation.
He also said he was pleased to say that they had a significant pipeline of EFSI related projects, up to 260 million, in supporting private sector investment by small and medium size enterprises for energy efficiency. 

Addressing the conference President of Nicosia Chamber of Commerce and Industry Stelios Anastasiades said that for the last six years, the European Investment Bank has been supporting Cyprus’s efforts for economic recovery and growth by promoting key investments exceeding 1 .7 billion euros with funding spread across all sectors of the Cyprus economy, including SMEs, energy, education, transport, environment, urban regeneration and many more. As he said, in 2017, EIB’s investment to the public and private sector of the island has reached over 333 million euros which amounts to 1,8% of the country’s GDP.

Source: Stockwatch

Property prices in Cyprus increased in the fourth quarter of 2017, as recorded by the the thirty-third publication of RICS’ Cyprus Property Price Index, released Tuesday.

According to a press release, across Cyprus, residential prices for both houses and flats increased on a quarterly basis by 0.8% and 1.4% respectively, with the biggest increase recorded in Larnaca with quarterly increase of 2.7% for flats followed by Limassol with a quarterly increase of 1.5% for houses.

Values for holiday homes on a quarterly basis across Cyprus increased by 0.4% for flats and 0.3% for houses. Paphos showed the highest quarterly increases for holiday apartments with an increase of 1.33% and Paralimni for holiday homes with an increase of 0.9%.

Across Cyprus, on an annual basis (compared to Q4 2016), prices for flats increased by 7.1%, for houses by 4.3%, for offices by 8.3%, warehouses by 4.4% and retail by 3.1%. Across Cyprus, on an annual basis for flats and houses the highest increase was in Limassol with 11.1% and 12.6% respectively, for offices Nicosia with 17.7%, for warehouses and retail the highest increase was in Nicosia with 9.3% and 4.2% respectively.

Across Cyprus, on a quarterly basis rental values increased by 2.9% for apartments, 1.9% for houses, 0.6% for retail, 2.5% for offices and 0.2% for warehouses. Compared to Q4 2016, rents increased annually by 13.7% for flats, 8.2% for houses, 5.9% for retail, 19.2% for offices and for warehouses 1.8%.

The RICS Cyprus Property Price Index monitors the urban centres of Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, Paphos and Paralimni- Famagusta. The Index only tracks prices in the area controlled by the Republic of Cyprus’ government and not in the occupied by Turkey northern part of the island.

Source: Stockwatch

The Department of Lands and Surveys will soon invite tenders from private property appraisers to take part in efforts to reassess the value of some two million properties at current prices.

Limited interest was expressed after the first tender invitation last March. The move is part of ongoing efforts to update property values, at 1st January 2018 prices. The only other evaluation was carried out in 1980, and the authorities often refer to property values at 1980 prices.

Director of the department, Andreas Socratous, said it was decided to entrust part of the general property valuation process to the private sector.

He said that a limited number of private appraisers expressed interest during the tender competition announced last March, but that another competition will be announced soon, “to give the opportunity to more private appraisers to participate”.

One of the main reasons for the low interest shown was that most of the private offices were very busy with loan restructurings, he said. Another reason, was that “some of the terms we had originally set and which related to experience or previous work were a bit strict and we will change them now”.

Socratous told the Cyprus News Agency that until the entire bidding process was completed, “the Department of Lands and Surveys carries on with its own work in a way that the general appraisal process would be completed as soon as possible”. He added that the contribution of the private appraisers would be complementary to the work carried out by the department.

At the moment, local government was assisting the department to fill in some gaps as regards the area of real estate in square metres while the private sector would then assist in efforts to assess the value of real estate per square metre, per area and age of the property.

Source: CyprusMail

As Europe’s new privacy law took effect on Friday, one activist wasted no time in asserting the additional rights it gives people over the data that companies want to collect about them.

Austrian Max Schrems filed complaints against Google , Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, arguing they were acting illegally by forcing users to accept intrusive terms of service or lose access.

That take-it-or-leave-it approach, Schrems told Reuters Television, violates people’s right under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to choose freely whether to allow companies to use their data.

“You have to have a ‘yes or no’ option,” Schrems said in an interview recorded in Vienna before he filed the complaints in various European jurisdictions.

“A lot of these companies now force you to consent to the new privacy policy, which is totally against the law.”

The GDPR overhauls data protection laws in the European Union that predate the rise of the internet and, most importantly, foresees fines of up to 4 percent of global revenues for companies that break the rules.

That puts potential sanctions in the ballpark of anti-trust fines levied by Brussels that, in Google’s case, have run into billions of dollars.

Andrea Jelinek, who heads both Austria’s Data Protection Authority and a new European Data Protection Board set up under GDPR, said she expected to see complaints come in as soon as the law enters force across the 28-member European Union.

SCOURGE OF FACEBOOK

Schrems was a 23-year-old law student when he first took on Facebook and he’s been fighting Mark Zuckerberg’s social network ever since – becoming the poster-boy for data privacy.

He won a landmark European court ruling in 2015 that invalidated a ‘safe harbour’ agreement that allowed firms to transfer personal data from the EU to the United States, where data protection is less strict.

With GDPR in mind, he recently set up a non-profit called None of Your Business https://noyb.eu (noyb) that plans legal action to blunt the ability of the tech titans to harvest data that they then use to sell targeted advertising.

His laptop perched on the table of a traditional Viennese coffee house, Schrems showed how a pop-up message on Facebook seeks consent to use his data – and how he is blocked when he refuses.

“The only way is to really accept it, otherwise you cannot use your Facebook any more,” Schrems explained.

“As you can see, I have my messages there and I cannot read them unless I agree.”

Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said in a statement that the company has prepared for 18 months to ensure it meets the requirements of GDPR by making its policies clearer and its privacy settings easier to find.

Facebook, which has more than 2 billion regular users, has also said that advertising allows it to remain free, and that the whole service, including ads, is meant to be personalized based on user data.

“1,000-EURO BRICK”

Schrems said, however, that Instagram, a photo-sharing network popular with younger users, and encrypted messaging service WhatsApp – both owned by Facebook – also use pop-ups to gain consent and bar users who refuse.

The action brought by noyb against Google relates to new smartphones using its Android operating system. Buyers are required to hand over their data or else own “a 1,000-euro brick” that they can’t use, Schrems said.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

noyb is filing the four claims with data protection authorities in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria. Ensuing litigation may play out in Ireland, where both Facebook and Google have their European headquarters.

One filing, made against Facebook on behalf of an Austrian woman, asks the country’s data protection authority to investigate and, as appropriate, prohibit data processing operations based on invalid consent.

It also asks the regulator to impose “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” fines as foreseen by GDPR, which in Facebook’s case could run to 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion).

“So far it was cheaper just to ignore privacy rights,” said Schrems. “Now, hopefully, it’s going to be cheaper to follow them because the penalties are so high.”

Source: CyprusMail

The competitiveness of Cyprus’s economy was ranked 41st last year out of 63 countries surveyed, a drop of four positions from 2016, the University of Cyprus said.

The fall resulted from a lower ranking in the area of government and corporate efficiency and infrastructure, the Economic Research Centre (ERC) of the academic institution said in an emailed statement on Thursday, citing the findings of the 2018 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking. Cyprus’s overall drop was partly offset by economic performance.

The US, Hong Kong, and Singapore were ranked first, second, and third while Venezuela, Croatia, and Brazil took 63rd, 62nd and 61st positions respectively, according to the report. Cyprus fell behind Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and Latvia and was still ahead of Italy, Indonesia, and India.

The financial risk factor, social security contributions, and the increase in homicides were among criteria which last year deteriorated considerably, the ERC said. On the other hand, economic output, gross domestic product per capita, and the fiscal balance improved substantially compared to last year.

A public opinion poll demonstrated that what makes the Cypriot economy attractive is its tax regime, its high level of education, the specialised labour force, and the business-friendly environment, the ERC added.

The island was 22nd among 63 countries in terms of economic performance, mainly on international investment and the comparably low cost of living, the centre said. On the other hand, the current account deficit, poor diversification of the economy, the high unemployment rate, including youth, had the opposite effect.

This year, Cyprus was ranked 28th in terms of government efficiency, down from 22 last year, mainly on the deterioration in the areas of the central bank policy, the country’s credit rating, which remains in the non-investment grade area for almost six years, bureaucracy, justice, disposable income, and legislation on competition and immigration, the ERC said. Last year’s fiscal surplus, helped in partly containing the slippage aided by the island’s tax regime, despite a small drop.

The decline in business efficiency to 53 this year from 50 last year, was mainly the result of deterioration in financial criteria such as financial risk factor, stock market, corporate debt, and the digital transformation of companies, partly offset by a minor improvement in administrative practices, the centre added.

Lastly, in terms of infrastructure, Cyprus fell one place to 41 mainly on technological and scientific infrastructure, the ERC said. Criteria related to education had a positive impact on infrastructure ranking.

Source: CyprusMail

The European Commission presented yesterday the 2018 country-specific recommendations (CSRs), setting out its economic policy guidance for Member States for the next 12 to 18 months.

EC  recommends  that Cyprus take action in 2018 and 2019 to:

1.Adopt key legislative reforms to improve efficiency in the public sector, in particular as regards the functioning of the public administration and the governance of state-owned entities and local governments.

2.Step up efforts to improve the efficiency of the judicial system by revising civil procedures, increasing the specialisation of courts and setting up a fully operational e-justice system. Take measures to fully operationalise the insolvency and foreclosure frameworks and ensure reliable and swift systems for the issuance of title deeds and the transfer of immovable property rights.

3. Accelerate the reduction of non-performing loans by implementing a comprehensive strategy, including legislative amendments allowing for the effective enforcement of claims and facilitating the sale of loans. Integrate and strengthen the supervision of insurance companies and pension funds.

4. Prioritise the implementation of key elements of the action plan for growth, in particular fast-tracking strategic investments, and take additional measures to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises. Improve the performance of state-owned enterprises including by resuming the implementation of privatisation projects.

5. Complete reforms aimed at increasing the capacity and effectiveness of the public employment services and reinforce outreach and activation support for young people who are not in employment education or training. Complete the reform of the education and training system, including teacher evaluation and actions to increase the capacity of vocational education and training. Take measures to ensure that the National Health System becomes fully functional in 2020, as planned.

Source: Stockwatch

French energy giant TOTAL applied to the Cyprus government to acquire a stake in block license 8 in the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone currently owned by Italy’s ENI.

ENI and TOTAL are partners in blocks 11 and 6. An exploratory well carried out in early 2017 in Kalypso target revealed a “promising discovery” but no data have been disclosed yet concerning the Kalypso`s reservoir size.

“We applied to enter in the block 8 owned by ENI,” TOTAL President for Middle East production and exploration Stephane Michel said in statements following a meeting with Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades.

Michel gave no further details as to the stake TOTAL is seeking to acquire in the block 8 licence and did not elaborate concerning a timeframe for an exploratory well in the Kalypso target citing technical work that needs to be done.

The appraisal well, he said “is part of the discussions we have but you know there is a lot of technical work to be done before that can be done.”

Michel added the exploratory drill carried out in early 2017 had a “positive result,” adding an appraisal well is now needed.

On his part Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis described TOTAL application for a state in block 8 as significant development.

“This is a very significant development that strengthens the consortium in block 8 and increases TOTAL’s presence in Cyprus,” he said.

“After what has happened in block 3 we see one of Cyprus’ most significant partners seeking to increase its presence in our EEZ, especially in a block such as block 8 which remains unexplored,” he added.
 
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third. Nicosia is currently developing natural resources discovered within the Republic’s exclusive economic zone. Last February, Turkish warships blocked twice a vessel bound for drilling activities in Cyprus’ EEZ block 3 on behalf of Italian energy company ENI.

Source: Stockwatch