The Cypriot government is trying again to get the technology park project in Pentakomo (Limassol area) off the ground.
On Thursday, 25 April, the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry announced a tender for consultancy services and the development of tender documents to find a strategic investor who can make the ambitious idea a reality.
If you're interested, you can apply until 20 May 2024. The ministry says the project is important and that it could be a big boost for the Cypriot economy.
The idea of setting up a Technology Park in Cyprus was first mooted about 20 years ago.
First, they picked a spot for the park, then they started to figure out who would build it and how much it would cost. In the first phase of planning, the Cypriot government bought some privately owned land. They gave the owners similar plots in other parts of the island.
Experts who did some preliminary studies in 2006 on whether a Technology Park in Cyprus would be a good idea estimated that the project would generate about €780 million a year.
Officials said that Microsoft and Google were both interested in getting involved. The government said it would give about 82 million euros to get the project off the ground. But in 2010, when the global financial crisis hit, the budget was cut to 10 million euros. Over time, it was decided to increase the amount of investment in the project to 50 million euros. But then the financial crisis hit Cyprus in 2013, and the government decided to put the project on hold.
Three years later, they decided to bring the idea of creating a Technology Park back. Yorgos Lakkotrypis, Cyprus' Minister of Energy, Trade, Industry and Tourism, took charge of the project. While he was traveling abroad, he actively looked for investors and a company with experience in running such projects.
The government has to provide the park with communications (electricity, sewerage, water supply, telephone lines and roads) according to the tender terms. The state budget has set aside 3.5 million euros for this. The investor has to lay the communications within the park and build research laboratories, offices for business incubators and a hotel for visiting scientists and visitors to the park.
In May 2017, the Ministry of Commerce rejected the only bid they'd received from Wyncoast Industrial Park in Thailand because it didn't meet the tender conditions. The ministry took the commission's decision into account and declared the bidding invalid.
Since then, the project has been pretty quiet. But in 2021, foreign investors started showing interest again. The ministry thinks that if they change the way they announce tenders, the project will be a big success.