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A leading sector, an export & the rôle of a Turkish-Cypriot "state".
When the de facto division of the island took place, what became the north was by
far the most developed région agriculturally, due mostly to environmental factors
and previous long-term investment in irrigation. Prior to Turkish intervention,
agriculture was still the island's largest employer, the key export sector and the
largest source of foreign exchange (see Figures 2.5, 2.9 & 2.16). Since 1974 this
comparative advantage in the north has been further demonstrated by one of the few
large scale economic, inter-communal co-operative ventures: the exchange of water
from the north (arguably) for electricity from the south 74 . Clearly significant assets
existed for further development in northern Cyprus following the events of 1974,
and agriculture looked as if it was the leading sector.
The first steps toward recovery were therefore taken in the agricultural sector,
where factor requirements married more easily with the resources available to
economic planners. Some of the people coming in from the south had some
experience in agriculture, if not specifically in citrus farming though Turkish-
Cypriots had generally been more urban than Greek-Cypriots 75 . The first economic
objective of the Turkish-Cypriot administration was to sponsor recovery in the citrus
industry which, in the absence of a minerai industry, represented the region's
visible exports almost entirely. Revitalised citrus production provided the immediate
possibility of foreign exchange earnings.
1976 and '77. In the single paragraph devoted to the sector it summarises the problem of relatively
high general tourist statistics: "The expected growth in capacity usage has not been realised owing to
the fact that the majority of the tourists were visitors and were accommodated by their families. "
74 Solsten, E. 1993. Cvprus: A country study. Washington: Federai Research Division, Library of
Congress (Area Handbook Sériés) p. 153. Also Cyprus Mail, 15/9/1974: "the water supply to Nicosia
from Morphou has been restored to normal, a UN spokesman said". By the 1980's, Christodoulou
Claims that the north consumed between 20% and 25 % of electricity produced in the south, and for
which no payment was made, Christodoulou 1992. op. cit., p. 113.
75 Kitromilides, P.M. "From Coexistence to Confrontation: The Dynamics of Ethnie Conflict in
Cyprus", p.61, in Attalides M.A. 1977. (ed.) Cvprus Reviewed. Nicosia: The Jus Cypri Association
with the Co-ordinating C'tee of Scientific and Cultural Organisations.
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