Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEB) appealed to the Finance Minister, Marcos Kyprianou, on Friday to raise the recent decision of the Council of Ministers to suspend work permissions to foreign employees, as this will “hit the Cyprus companies”.

OEB submitted to the Finance Minister its proposals, including the regaining of economy’s competitiveness, the minimization of the negative impacts from the Iraqi war, the tax reform of 2002, the upgrading of the CSE institution, the regaining of investors’ confidence, the island’s accession in the EU and the adoption of the community acquis, the public sector sand the foreign employees.

The federation also proposed the creation of a special Administration Committee to confront the negative effects from the war and the exploitation of Cyprus’ comparative advantages against the other countries for the regaining of economy’s competitiveness.

As far as the public sector is concerned, OEB insists that there is a need to reduce state payroll and privatize malfunctioned public companies.