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Figure 2.27 Revenue from the offshore sector as a % of export revenue, 1985
to 1993.
35% T
25%
15%
,
MiM
9y.
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4 ,¡¿1
1 1 "ä
li
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fc 1 k
I
m
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' . 1 jì£
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I i I
1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993
Source: CenimiBank of Cyprus.
Offshore income*
* includes estimateci
earnings from shipping
co.s.
*+ exporls are FOB
When compared with the rapidly rising revenue from tourism, reflecting the
increasing numbers of tourists staying in Cyprus, the offshore sector has made little
headway in deflecting dependence from increasing numbers of cheap package
holidays on the island. Even during the offshore sector's most rapid period of
growth in earnings, during the mid to late eighties and early nineties, its value as a
proportion of earnings in the tourist sector grew only very gradually (Figure 2.28).
Despite some impressive looking growth statistics, the offshore sector has been a
tiny enclave within the Cypriot economy. In 1994 it employed only five and a half
thousand people, a total figure that had grown by 35% in the two preceding
years 107 , although only just under two thousand of them were full tax paying locai
hires 108 .
ibid.
108 Permanently resident expatriate employees are taxed at half the Cypriot rate of income tax
(therefore max. 20%), and benefit from duty free status with regard to vehicles and many other
goods and services purchased in Cyprus. Coopers & Lybrand. op. cit., pp. 158-159, pp. 173-4.
118