A Perspective from Cyprus

A friend from Cyprus writes:

Indeed the situation here is not good. We have major financial problems. Greece took us down the drain. Our banks lost about 4.5 billion euros from the haircut on Greek government bonds, 5 billion in non-performing loans from Greek operations of Cypriot banks, plus about 3 billion from a major blast at the energy base in Cyprus (in July 2011). Since our GDP is only 18 billion euros, these losses add up to about the 70 percent of our GDP. But we have no choice. We have to see ahead and do our best and recover asap.

Shyam Sunder