President urges businessmen in Kyiv Forum to seek new business initiatives
President Nicos Anastasiades urged Cypriot and Ukrainian entrepreneurs to identify new joint business initiatives, as well as new areas for future co-operation and assured them that his government will facilitate such cooperation.
President Anastasiades was addressing, on Friday a Business Forum, in Kyiv, where he is paying a visit. Earlier on in the day he had talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, with whom they agreed to further enhance bilateral ties and the two countries signed a number of cooperation agreements and memoranda.
I am particularly pleased that during the substantive meeting and lunch held today with my dearest friend President Poroshenko, it was firmly established that we both aspire to substantially enhance our bilateral and regional dialogue, and qualitatively upgrade our relationship, through, among others, advancing our cooperation in an array of fields,, he said according to an official press release.
President Anastasiades quoted data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, according to which as of 1st of October 2015, Cyprus ranks first both on the list of countries with direct investments in the Ukrainian economy with a total volume of 12.2. billion US dollars, and on the list of countries that are recipients of direct investment from Ukraine, with the volume being close to 6 billion US dollars.
According to the same data available, the volume of export of services from Ukraine to the Republic of Cyprus reached 67,2 million US dollars as of the 1st of April, 2015, while the import of services from Cyprus to Ukraine reached 72,6 million US dollars, he added.
Although, our investment cooperation has reached unprecedented levels, in areas such as air transport, agriculture, sports, economic, scientific, technical and industrial co-operation, our trade volume does not fully reflect the full potential of our relationship, he noted.
In this regard, he noted, I urge all of you to identify a number of new joint business initiatives, as well as new areas for future co-operation.
He assured businessmen that his government will facilitate and actively promote any relevant initiatives, and will take any necessary measures to further enhance our economic partnership.
Referring to cooperation in tourism President Anastasiades said we are witnessing an upward trend of tourist arrivals from Ukraine.
This year it is estimated that 50,000 Ukrainians visited Cyprus, a figure that represents a 22% increase of tourist arrivals from Ukraine to Cyprus since last year, he added.
This increase, he said, can be attributed to the co-ordinated efforts of the private sector and the support provided by the government, through, among others, the services provided by our Embassy and the office of the Cyprus Tourist Organization in Kyiv, as well as our two Consular Offices in Mariupol and Odessa, and the speedier granting of visas for Ukrainian nationals.
President Anastasiades also spoke of Cyprus` economic recovery, noting that it is emerging stronger than ever from an unprecedented crisis.
Our path to recovery has been faster than anyone predicted two and a half years ago, as evident by the fact that there is a 1.4% GDP growth forecast for 2015-16, he said.