THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: It has been three years since I was last in Paphos, a resort on Cyprus's west coast, and at first glance not much has changed.
In a taxi from the airport, down a rollercoaster road of potholes and speed bumps, we drive past white-walled villas draped in bougainvillea. At the quayside of the old harbour, traditional fish restaurants continue to do steady business, as tourists gather by the castle to watch a magnificent sunset. Behind this façade of familiarity, however, the comings and goings have been so dramatic that many in Cyprus are struggling to understand what has happened to them. Important features of local life have, literally, disappeared – and I'm not talking just about thousands of feral cats that used to reside here.
This island, once a magnet for money, is perilously close to running out of cash. Standard & Poor's, the ratings agency, has downgraded Cyprus twice since the beginning of August, citing "deteriorating domestic credit conditions and eroding consumer and investor confidence".
With an election due in February and fears of a lurch to the left, a local café owner admitted to me that property buyers from overseas, many of them British, who in the past had been "robbed", would be foolish to rush back.
Evidence of plunging fortunes is everywhere, with billboards offering two-bedroom apartments, originally priced at €150,00 (£122,000), now €79,000. In the shopping zone close to Paphos's more expensive hotels, there are several boarded up premises, scarred with graffiti, where bars and car-hire companies used to flourish.
Things are so bad that some individuals, owed money by the government for appropriation of their land, have begun sending in the bailiffs to seize state assets. Only last week, seven vehicles owned by various departments, including the land registry, were grabbed and whisked away for auction. » | Jeffrey Randall | Monday, October 22, 2012
