Banking sector stress tests tend to be a make or break affair. For Cyprus, the comprehensive assessment by the European Central Bank (ECB) was a blessing. While there still is much to do to ensure economic recovery following the 2013 crisis, Cyprus has worked hard and achieved more than was expected of it in past 18 months.
The country has outperformed the economic forecasts made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the government’s own, more optimistic estimates. While preliminary gross domestic product (GDP) figures show that the country did not grow in 2014, it is expected to return to growth in 2015.