There has been ‘tremendous traffic’ to Cyprus, as regards arrival of military sources from Europe, which aim to provide rescue facilities, Cyprus’ Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Alexis Vafeades, said on Wednesday at the Economist’s 19th Annual Cyprus Summit, in Nicosia, noting that this was something new. The Minister, who presented the Cypriot Government’s priorities in the session on strengthening regional collaboration through major infrastructure projects, noted the link between Cyprus’ ‘key geographic location’ and the importance of improving its infrastructure and services for commercial, energy and humanitarian purposes. He referred to the environment within which Cyprus operates, noting that politics and political environment was one of them, with Cyprus being an EU member state, as well as geography, adding that it is an island on the periphery of Europe, in the eastern Mediterranean, and sitting the middle of the region expanding all the way to the Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He also referred to the importance the EU assigns to the environment and the Green Deal. He also said that geopolitics was another factor and how the war in Ukraine has affected the logistics and supply chains, as well as the crisis in Israel and the need for humanitarian aid. He also noted that the war in Ukraine has disrupted the supply and said that the EU needed to create parallel routes and networks to ensure that goods and services will be supplied to the Union and to the world around it. The Green Deal was ‘a major issue’, he said, adding that they anticipate that it will affect anything that has to do with the delivery of goods, since distance will be equal to energy and that will be directly linked to an energy budget. He also said that, because of geopolitics, ‘we have seen how important military mobility is and how we can improve infrastructure to allow for military mobility to function as efficiently as possible’. With regards to alternative transport routes, he said that Cyprus was aware of how the EU is stressing the need for new land routes and how Central Asia needs to join up to the mainland of Europe, but that it must also be recognised that, no matter how many routes there are to satisfy the delivery of trade and supply of goods, it will never replace sea routes. He said Cyprus lies on a major route from Central Asia through the Suez Canal to Europe, ‘so we aim to create a better business set up to enable trade to flow at a cheaper cost throughout Europe’. The Minister said that the Government was working to upgrade the port at Vasiliko, noting that this was the second terminal of the Limassol port, and that it is intended to be an industrial port which also acts as an energy hub and it is intended to be an addition to the Republic’s other two ports. ‘We will be investing a major amount of money to improve the port at Vasiliko, turn it into an industrial hub, industrial port and try to upgrade the level of service to the region’, he said. He also said that the new Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) and the links to Israel and Crete whenever they develop, were also major infrastructure projects that aim to improve regional collaboration. Vafeades said that Nicosia had as a priority to complete its part of the trans-European network for transport programme and was working hard to deliver the new Nicosia south orbital so for 2030 and by 2050 ‘we’ll be ready with our other road networks, the Limassol-Saittas, the Astromeritis, and the Pafos-Polis highways’. As regards the Green Deal, he said Cyprus was moving forward with the ‘cold ironing’ which is part of it, and part of Cyprus’ services upgrade. He said Cyprus will be able to provide more ships at port with electricity as per the requirements of the EU, and will be working towards an approach towards its national resources, towards the LNG fields off the shores of Cyprus, as a fuel and as a commodity. ‘We will be investing heavily in that infrastructure’, he said. The Minister said that Nicosia was also working with the EU in soft infrastructure, in trying to use technology in improving the pace with which goods can go through Cyprus. ‘Tremendous traffic’ to Cyprus due to Israel crisis ————————– ‘Most importantly’, he said, ‘we do understand that the key geographic location in Cyprus is important for providing a safe haven for all sorts of events happening in the region’ and he referred to the proposal by President Nikos Christodoulides for the creation of a humanitarian link, in case it is needed. ‘This proves that we do need to improve our infrastructure, not only in ports, to facilitate in more ships that will be needed for this, but also we need to improve the services and the infrastructure at the airports’, he said. Vafeades said that there has been ‘tremendous traffic’ to Cyprus, from military sources in Europe, which aim to provide rescue facilities noting that this was something new. ‘We have been witnessing how this has stretched our capacity as a country to provide a good service’, he said, adding that the Government, in the near future, will be working on that, to be ready, if needed, Cyprus will be providing even better services at its ports and airports for military mobility and presence for humanitarian aid and for search and rescue purposes.
Source: Cyprus News Agency