Troika praised Cyprus on Tuesday for its fiscal reform programme. The international lenders from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund stated that Cyprus has made significant progress. This was the third assessment of the progress of Cyprus in relation to the three year adjustment programme.
Cyprus has exceeded fiscal targets, which is considered to be an even better performance than Ireland. Ireland is the only Eurozone country which has completed a bailout programme. This notable progress of Cyprus is seen as largely attributed to the private sector consumption which did not react in a very negative way. Cyprus’s economy contracted around 6% in 2013, about 2 percentage points better than the Troika forecast of December. The lenders expect a decline in output for 2014 at 4.8% and a modest growth of 1% in 2015.
The positive response of Cyprus to the three year adjustment programme, shows that Cyprus has the will and determination to not only meet the desired bailout targets but to actually outperform these targets. These are very encouraging news and Cyprus will hopefully continue meeting targets and successfully implementing needed reforms.
