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The economy under Turkish-Cypriot administration
Much of the economic activity in the enclaves (particularly in the 1963-68 period)
was not recorded in Republic of Cyprus national income accounts. The community
neither paid taxes to, nor benefited from transfer payments from the Government of
the Republic of Cyprus 45 . Multilateral aid designed for the community was mostly
neither claimed nor received. Being Channelled through the Republic of Cyprus,
Turkish-Cypriot Claims were seen as confirming the Government's legitimacy 46 .
Movement in and out of the key Turkish-Cypriot enclaves was periodically
constrained and permanently monitored. Some necessities of life and many
necessary prerequisites of efficient economic activity were considered "strategie
mater ials" and either prescribed or, in the case of fuel, limited and control led.
Smuggling was rife in these items and also, ironically, involved extremist types on
the Greek side. Illegal drops of prescribed materials would be made in no-man' s
land and would be retrieved later by Turkish-Cypriot Fighters (communal defence
force). These materials would have registered initially as imports, therefore entering
national income accounts, but the income multiplier that followed the application
subsequently undertaken would not 47 . Not that there was much of an income
multiplier. Many Turkish-Cypriots living in the enclaves were displaced from
elsewhere, having lost their economic foundation, either with the move or with the
loss of public sector employment.
Financial assistance began to arrive from Turkey 48 in March 1964, via the London
branch of a Turkish bank and the offices of the Central Bank of Cyprus. Payment
45 Marjorie Haid is one of the few writers on the economy of Cyprus who acknowledges tliis fact
[Haid M.W. 1968. A Study of the Cvprus Economy. Nicosia: Printing Office of the Republic of
Cyprus, p. 43, footnote 63] : "Since 1964 statistics on the economic activities in Turkish areas have
been incomplete. "
46 Patrick 1976. op. cit., p. 168.
47 Interview with Ozalp Sarica, op. cit.
48 Criticising mismanagement of fiinds, Turgut Mustafa, a member of the General Committee, said
aid from Turkey in the six years to the end of 1969 amounted to £7,500,000, Cyprus Mail
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