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financing from financial markets picks up and grows rapidly, overtaking multilateral<br />

aid in 1978 and remaining the dominant source of external finance until 1985.<br />

Between the 1960s and the late 1980s when the Republic of Cyprus moved from<br />

being one of the lowest debtor countries to being one of the highest, it had<br />

experienced significant and rapid economic restructuring. The structure of<br />

employment and the composition of GDP had changed profoundly between 1970<br />

and 1980. Both in terms of the composition of exports and the direction, Cyprus<br />

appeared to have matured as an economy, being less dépendent on a few primary<br />

products and less dépendent on old colonial links. The watershed for ail of these<br />

changes, again unsurprisingly, was the de facto division of the island, north and<br />

south. So while many of the real costs of war were reflected in the labour market,<br />

structural unemployment rapidly took on the appearance of frictional<br />

unemployment, as much of the financial costs of restructuring were borne by<br />

foreign aid and, increasingly, by the world's money markets.<br />

The same period saw a ratcheting of the tax bürden on the economy. While statistics<br />

before and after 1970 are not compatible 58 , prior to 1970 both taxes on income and<br />

expenditure had gradually declined as a percentage of GDP. In 1960 "taxes on<br />

expenditure" represented the équivalent of 10% of Republic of Cyprus GDP whilst<br />

"taxes on income" represented 5%. By 1970, "taxes on expenditure" had fallen to 7%<br />

and "taxes on income" to 3%. Similarly, using the newer Statistical catégories, in 1970<br />

"indirect taxes" represented the équivalent of 8% of the Republic's GDP, and "direct<br />

taxes" represented 4%. The total tax bürden in that year, which included social<br />

security contributions, represented 13% of GDP. By 1974, the composition of tax and<br />

total tax bürden was unchanged, although the intervening few years experienced some<br />

58 Republic of Cyprus, 1994. Historical Data on the Economy of Cyprus, 1960-1991. Nicosia:<br />

Ministry of Finance, Dept. of Statistics and Research, pp. 41-42, 143-144; Republic of Cyprus, 1995.<br />

.Statistica! Abstract 1993. Nicosia: Ministiy of Finance, Dept. of Statistics and Research, p. 290.<br />

96

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