The Cypriot government further loosens capital controls.

According to an announcement by the Ministry of Finance, the Republic of Cyprus has made significant progress in addressing the crisis, achieving substantial stabilization of the financial sector.

It is stressed that the restoration of the confidence of the investors and depositors as well as the confidence of the international markets in the Cypriot economy is important.

Therefore, the Government is able to proceed with another major relaxation of the restrictive measures concerning:

a) The abolition of the examination threshold of requests of €2 million by the Special Committee on the restrictive measures to the Central Bank, for payments and money transfers outside the Republic for business transactions. In this way the credit institutions will now deal with those requests from their customers.

b) The increase in money transfer limit outside the Republic per person for each credit institution, regardless of the purpose, from €10.000 to €20.000 per month.

c) The increase in euro notes and/or foreign currency notes transfer limit outside the Republic per natural person per trip abroad from €6.000 to €10.000.

The Minister of Finance Charis Georgiades has announced recently that all capital controls will be lifted by next March.