Cypriot gov't approves first budget after end of three year bailout

Cyprus' Council of Ministers approved the 2017 budget, the first after the termination of a three year supervision of its economy by international lenders under a 10-billion-euro (11.2 billion U.S. dollars) bailout, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said on Tuesday.

Georgiades said the budget is geared to sustain a 2.8 percent growth for each of the next three years.

"The budget both confirms and supports the recovery of the economy after a prolonged depression. It is a balanced budget with a satisfactory primary surplus," he said.

A primary surplus is the surplus in a budget before any interest on the sovereign debt is paid.

Georgiades did not give details of the budget pending its introduction into parliament, which will be called on to debate it and give its stamp of approval.

"We are spending the entire amount of our income but nothing more and we in no way get outside the security limits and what reason dictates," said Georgiades.

He added that the budget sticks to the basic lines of austerity drawn by the Troika -- the collective name by which the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are known -- which had carried out a survey of the Cypriot economy every three months for the duration of the bailout program.

He said that an embargo on hiring more public servants will stay in place but he announced that as of January public employees and pensioners will have an increase in their income in the form of yearly increments and cost of living allowance, in addition to the abolition of a 3 percent salary reduction introduced since 2012. Endit