After a chaotic month in which Cyprus was pushed to the brink of default and a possible exit from the eurozone, Cypriots knew things would get bad. But not this bad.
A bleak assessment released on Thursday by its European partners, says the Cypriot economy will spiral downwards for at least the next two years, contracting by up to 12.5 per cent as the country cuts a banking sector that had ballooned to more than five times its gross domestic product.
And because the economy will do worse than expected, Cyprus must soon raise €13 billion - nearly twice the amount the government thought it would have to come up with just a month ago - in order to keep its debt and deficit from spinning out of control and to maintain a €10 billion ($12.4 billion) international bailout secured last month by the newly elected president, Nicos Anastasiades.