The AKEL party will present a total of six proposals for reducing the cost of electricity on Tuesday, according to the party’s General Secretary, Stefanos Stefanou, who states that the aim is to address the high costs and pressures faced by households and businesses.
Accompanied by party officials, the AKEL General Secretary visited the industrial area of Agios Athanasios (Linopetra) today, where he had meetings with the management and employees of the Charalambidis-Kristis and Lefkonijiatis dairy industries, followed by a meeting with the Association of Industrialists of Agios Athanasios.
In his statements, Mr. Stefanou said that AKEL is interested “on the one hand, in having a dynamic and good business environment and, on the other hand, in having quality job positions with rights and good incomes for workers.”
“And for both, we have specific proposals; we have exchanged views with managements as well as with the workforce, and as much as is in our power, as an opposition party, both within and outside the Parliament, with our proposals and actions, we are trying to contribute so that we can have both a dynamic business environment and quality job positions,” he added.
At the same time, he emphasized that a fundamental issue for all businesses is the high cost of electricity, adding that “it has become even higher in recent years due to the fact that investments that should have been made by the state were not made, and today we are paying a very high cost also because of the pollutants we are paying for.”
Last year, he continued, Cyprus paid about 350 million euros for pollution, and this year it is estimated that this amount will rise to about half a billion euros, noting that “this is money coming out of the pockets of consumers, whether they are businesses or households.”
The AKEL General Secretary announced that his party will hold a press conference tomorrow to present six proposals, “three for immediate implementation to reduce the cost of electricity and three medium-term structural solutions that must and can be implemented, so that we can address the very high cost of energy that puts great pressure on households and especially on small and medium-sized enterprises.”
Asked about the reasons for his visit to two dairy industries, Mr. Stefanou said that this is not a coincidence, but is done “in view of the discussion on the halloumi formula, on how we deal with various issues, because we also want to be informed, to have full information to help Cyprus, the economy, business, and of course all the workers involved in this important sector of the Cypriot economy.”
He concluded by stating that halloumi is a very important export product and contributes significantly to the economy of the country.
