He left KPMG in March 1999 when he was appointed Minister of Finance of the Republic of Cyprus, a post he held until February 2003.
[3] In his speech to the House of Representatives in November 2002, Klerides outlined that during 2001 and 2002 the Economy of Cyprus faced an adverse external environment.
These include the positive record in macroeconomic stability, manifested in the low inflation rate and the containment of the fiscal deficit below 3% of GDP, thus fulfilling the corresponding Maastricht Treaty criterion, the improvement of the standard of living, the enhancement of competitiveness and the modernisation of the public sector.
In a report released in 2002 by local newspaper Cyprus Weekly, it praised the activities of the Watchdog Committee of the House of Representatives, which investigated the causes of the bubble and called for tighter supervision of auditors, increased powers for regulators and greater public education to ensure that such a situation does not arise again.
Likening the 2000 crisis to the aftermath of the collapse of Enron, the newspaper called for new standards to ensure the independence of auditors from CSE activities.