Former Minister of Finance Michalis Sarris expressed the view that the Republic of Cyprus lost several million euros due to the Cyprus Investment Program, speaking on the radio show Insider on Active.
As he explained speaking to Socrates Joachim and Mario Rousseau, several serious investors, seeing even before the publication of the Al Jazeera documentary the naturalization process in Cyprus, withdrew their interest in investing in the country, preferring other countries.
As he explained, during his term of office, between August 2005 and March 2008, there was no approval of naturalizations by the Council of Ministers as the KEP was in its infancy.
He stated that the KEP caused great damage to the image of Cyprus and it will take years to heal.
Mr. Sarris also spoke about the banking sector, describing as positive the reduction of non-performing loans. However, he expressed the view that due to the coronavirus pandemic, there is still uncertainty.
The pandemic, as he mentioned, caused a loss of € 1 billion, which corresponds to 5% of the country's GDP.
