The StartUp & Entrepreneurship Conference 20th April 2017 Dear guests, It is with great interest that I am here today at the StartUp & Entrepreneurship Conference. The floor today does not belong to politicians or government officials like myself but to successful practitioners, academics, young people with new ideas, and to all those who can really create added value, income and jobs to our economy. What is entrepreneurship? It is a way people take control of their lives. Our key role as a government is to facilitate entrepreneurship and innovation and allow it to flourish, not to substitute it or dictate how it’s done by old, tried and failed methods of central planning. And it is true that entrepreneurship has been battered both in Cyprus but also in many countries Europe in general, in the years that preceded the crisis, by flawed policies of red tape, distorted government intervention, protection and irrational public and private borrowing. I hope that the crisis has been an enlightening moment for all of us and the turning point to the return to basic principles of promoting entrepreneurship using modern tools. Our aim is to create a new generation of future innovators and real entrepreneurs and not a new generation aspiring to become civil servants. Cyprus businesses are entrepreneurial by nature, but they need the government behaving as an enabler and not an inhibitor for Cyprus to become an attractive place for entrepreneurial oriented individuals and teams to establish operate and grow their business. The entrepreneurial ecosystem is slowly but steadily growing and I am confident that in the years to come, innovation and entrepreneurship will drive social and economic growth in the island. I was happily surprised by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor results whereby 72.7% of respondents in Cyprus now consider entrepreneurship as a good career
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choice whereas the corresponding average in Europe is 57.2%. This reflects a promising turn in culture. But, at the same time, I must admint that I am concerned that according to the Global Entrepreneurship Index, the greatest challenges for Cyprus are in “Risk Acceptance” and “Opportunity Perception”, factors that also have to do with entrepreneurial culture. As a government, having already established the general prepequisites; sound fiscal policies, a favourable general tax and legal framework, for the past 2 years as a Presidency we put a lot of effort to start setting the right framework that will allow businesses and entrepreneurship to flourish also at microlevel; through the design of a policy with specific actions to promote startups and scale up business. Following
one
year
of
implementation
of
the
Policy
Statement
for
Entrepreneurship, the first holistic policy on entrepreneurship in Cyprus, the results are not that bad: out of the 75 targeted actions of the policy Statement, 45% of actions have been completed and 40% are already in progress. Encouragement of entrepreneurial culture, improve access to finance for risky ventures, encouragement of entrepreneurial innovation, improvement of business environment are the main pillars of the Policy Statement. In the past year, with the initiative of the Presidency itself, we have planted the seed and have joining forces with the private sector to help the ecosystem grow. Indicatively, just some key actions that we have completed or are close to completion include:
the simplification of the procedures required to set up and operate a business in Cyprus,
the introduction of tax incentives to individuals to invest in innovative and startup companies. The income tax relief can be up to 50% of taxable income for natural persons investing directly or through investment funds in qualifying innovative SMEs and startups, with an upper limit of deduction €150 000 per year. Already the 1st certificate has been issued and others are on the way.
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the introduction of a competitive Cyprus Startup Visa Scheme, in order to attract talent from non-EU citizens in Cyprus
the amendment of the Law governing public universities in order to transfer know how, including the creation of spin-offs,
Publication and further use of Open Data (900 sets of data published on the website from 60 government sector bodies)
the introduction of legislation and a specific action plan for social entrepreneurship
Awareness in schools of what entrepreneurship is, creativity building and critical thinking.
School competitions to enhance entrepreneurial spirit
Significant progress in introducing e-government and a digital agenda.
Cyprus has the chance to embrace not only local but also foreign entrepreneurs if it introduces some key structural changes. And this is what we are trying to do. Are these enough? Of course not! Can we built the entrepreneurial ecosystem we want from one day to another? No. But we are making progress. As policy-makers we are closer to the entrepreneurial and the start-up community than ever, we work together and we don’t see ourselves as state paternalists who pretend to know everything. Change and growth is a process, not an event. It will come from all of you, by unleashing your potential and helping you to transform your ideas into marketready products. The effort is real and the signs very positive. The signs coming from a buzzing business community and a recovering economy, from an economy which is restoring its creditworthiness and improving its competitiveness, the confidence of its international lenders, investors and the credit rating institutions; the signs coming from a government not afraid, but eager to change. This is a joint effort and I’m confident that this effort will soon pay off. Thank you all for being here today, and my team is ready to work with and learn from you.