Cypriot funds to bolster countryside

“The government supports rural areas and their residents,” Cyprus’ Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos said on Sunday evening, stressing that in 2019 the government adopted the National Strategy for the Development of Mountain Communities, for the first time since the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus.

The minister was addressing a festival in Agios Amvrosios, a mountain village in the Limassol district.

In his speech, he said the government has identified the need to support rural areas while “the aim of the president himself is the revitalization of these areas,” to create conditions that will attract young families but also investors and entrepreneurs for business activity.

Karousos noted that the aim of the strategy was to provide actual support to mountainous and remote areas in order to be able to develop in terms of tourism, but also culturally, socially and economically.

The minister said that the budgeted amount for development projects in rural and mountainous communities for the 2022-24 period will exceed 370 million euros, that is €125 million more than in 2019-21.