Cyprus facing ruin regardless of deal
By Nick Squires, Nicosia11:25AM GMT 24 Mar 2013'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...g-ruin-regardless-of-deal-islanders-warn.html
Cyprusâs leaders are expected to submit to the drastic plan - which critics call daylight robbery - in return for a 10 billion euro bail-out loan to save the country from bankruptcy.
While the deal may stave off immediate disaster, many Cypriots said the measures will shatter confidence in the islandâs hugely profitable banking and financial services industry and lead to a massive exodus of investors, among them Russian tycoons and British retirees.
Islanders also fear that as the bank levies bite, businesses and big investors will have to start laying off staff, heralding high levels of unemployment.
Around 70 per cent of Cypriots are employed in the financial services and banking sector, a number that dwarfs the 20 per cent working in tourism.
âPeople are worried not just because they could lose their savings but because they could lose their jobs too,â said Ioanna Constantinou, 24, who works in the financial services industry in Nicosia, the Cypriot capital.
âI think a lot of people will be out of work soon and looking for jobs. The young people, especially, will go abroad because you canât live with this level of uncertainty,â said Miss Constantinou, who like many Cypriots attended a British university. âThe banking sector is finished, we have lost all credibility â who is going to want to bring their money to Cyprus now?â
âThe talk among a lot of locals is that Germany has engineered this deliberately to scare off the Russians and so that they can get their hands on the LNG deposits. That way we will be forced to turn to Germany as our next sugar daddy. We have been forced to slap the Russians in the face, even though we didnât want to,â said John Leonidou, a reporter with the Cyprus Weekly, who was brought up in the UK.
âWe have always been important strategically, from the time of the Venetians, the Ottomans and the British. We are slap bang in the middle of Africa, Asia Minor and Europe. The gas reserves makes us even more important. But as a commercial centre, we have been destroyed. We will have to pull off a miracle to bring back our credibility.â