Cyprus has no special transactions, at least in goods with the US
Cyprus has no particular transactions, at least in goods with the US, so we will have no immediate impact on the Cypriot economy, OEB General Manager Michalis Antoniou told the CIPE, which is called upon to comment on developments after the imposition of customs duties by US President Donald.
“It is obvious that we are entering a spiral of imposing tariff measures, countermeasures and possibly additional tariff measures,” he added.
Mr Antoniou said that the problem would arise in all economies and if maintained it would lead to a slowdown in growth as it seems.
“At least the first estimates are that we will have a slowdown in growth, which no one can still accurately calculate,” he added.
However, the OUB DG said that “no panic is justified” and expressed the view that these developments have a disproportionate description and reference to reports internationally about what is happening with duties.
“The balance line will come at some point and we will find our gait,” he added.
Mr Antoniou said that with today’s developments and the trade war “we are going to what we call Retaliation and Scalation in our discussions in Europe, namely tariff measures, tariffs and new measures.
“A spiral that drives things to the bottom basically by victims of businesses and consumers,” he added.
Mr Antoniou said this seems to be the case right now, adding, however, that “the effects are obvious that they will immediately affect those who have trading from or to the United States”.
He noted that at the beginning, with the first Trump announcements, we calculated the cost of the growth of the global economy, close to 0.5%, but now with all these countermeasures and threats of Trump to put other duties, as he said, “no one can know the total cost of world growth”.
The OEB DG said that “oil markets have already reacted, predicting that we will have a slowdown” and for him the oil prices have fallen, while “we have losses in the stock markets which means that until the situation is stabilized, they will find the balance line again.”
“And most importantly, uncertainty is,” he said, adding, however, that these are, however unpleasant they are, they should not create panic, neither in Cyprus, nor in Europe if we keep our temper. “
According to Mr Antoniou, the problem of Europe is that its three main markets, Russia, China and the US are all three problematic at the moment.
In addition to the well -known reasons for Russia, “Europe has very serious issues with China as a commercial partner”, and “now we have with the Americans,” he added.
Mr Antoniou also said that we are trying, within Europe, to see how we will reinforce agreements with other areas, such as Latin America, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
He added that this is the issue for the European Union.
Source: KYPE