Cyprus looks again at airport bids
NICOSIA (Reuters) – Cyprus will reassess bids in the partial privatization of its two airports, after one of the consortiums excluded from the final shortlist took the government to court, an official source said yesterday. The reassessment was expected to take two weeks, as officials sought feedback from a list of 10 groups which had initially expressed an interest in the airports venture last year. But a senior government source said it would not restart the procedure from scratch. Cyprus is seeking a strategic investor to put some 200 million pounds ($305 million) into the development of its Larnaca and Paphos airports for 20 years under a build-operate-transfer contract. However, the J&P Consortium took the government to court after it failed to make the final shortlist of five. The J&P Consortium includes Britain’s BAA and Greece’s Elliniki Technodomiki. A recent column made extensive reference to the historian Polybius (204-122 BC), showing that a drink made from raisins and known to the Romans as passum tasted like wines from Aigosthena and Crete. It concluded that mercenaries, the Ptolemies’ naval port, and sailors all helped spread the fame of Cretan wine, long before it was sent abroad in amphoras to be sold.
