Repairing its international image, damaged by its troubled banking sector at the peak of the banking crisis two years ago, is a great challenge for Cyprus, according to the participants in a conference held on Thursday under the title “How the banking crisis affected the international image of Cyprus”.
At the conference, which was sponsored by the CNA, the organisers -the Open University of Cyprus and the Advanced Media Institute- presented an analysis that revealed that the island’s once powerful banking sector turned into a negative factor for its international image since during the peak of the crisis the country gained high publicity through negative news coverage.
The researchers did a systematic analysis of 1.716 stories of four world class media organisations, namely the BBC, CNN, FOX and Al Jazeera, for a period of two years, from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2013.
Anastasia Mina, one of the researchers of the Open University of Cyprus, noted that up until today the banking sector seems to be trapped in a very negative context.
However, she said that Cyprus` appearance in global media has been declining after the peak of the crisis, in March 2013, diminishing its negative assessment in turn. But this is not the case with the banking sector. As Mina noted, although the island`s banking sector appears in global media more rarely, its negative assessment increases, rendering it very difficult to repair its image.
Addressing the conference, Government Spokesman Nikos Christodoulides said that the results of the analysis are correct and that “indeed the banking sector, once a source of power for the country has become its Achilles` heel”.
The Spokesman stressed that if Cyprus regains its credibility, it will manage to repair its image, adding that this is a great challenge.
“Our persuasiveness depends on whether or not we have tangible results” he noted, adding that this has been achieved to a great extent in the last two years, through a systematic and collective effort.
Chairwoman of the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission Demetra Kalogirou noted that regaining the investors` confidence and restoring the credibility of the financial system is its main target and to this end the Commission has enhanced supervision.
Athanasios Samaras, Assistant Professor and researcher at the Open University of Cyprus, noted that there should be actions to facilitate communication and procedures to break negative stereotypes, for the country to repair its image.