Chr. Staikouras: There will also be a sixth refundable advance payment

In March, there will be a sixth refundable advance payment, which will cover January and February., confirmed from the floor of Parliament, the Minister of Finance Christos Staikouras. In his speech on the bill entitled “Conduct of General Censuses for the year 2021 by the Hellenic Statistical Authority, urgent measures to address the effects of the coronavirus pandemic," COVID-19, urgent fiscal and tax regulations and other provisions,” Mr. Staikouras said that how the government will act in the coming period to support businesses depends on how the real economy develops, “but I can confirm that there will be a sixth refundable advance payment in March, covering January and February.

He also said that in the coming days, a joint ministerial decision will be issued allowing for the submission of applications., exceptionally, application for inclusion in the ’refundable advance payment 5“, for companies that submitted their details to the platform by January 19, 2021 MyBusinessSupport, but had not yet completed the relevant application form expressing their interest in receiving financial assistance. As the minister noted, this addresses the fact that some companies were excluded because they did not submit “by mistake” expression of interest, even though they declared their income.

Addressing the members of the Finance Committee who are working on the bill, Mr. Staikouras also referred to the problem with the approximately 10,000 new businesses that opened in September, performed satisfactorily in October, but closed in November and December. These companies showed a substantial increase in turnover for the two months, so they were excluded from receiving a refundable advance payment. The same happened with businesses that opened in December 2019, and we had to compare the four months of 2019 or January 2020 with the corresponding period of the last four months of 2020. The minister recalled that with the same Joint Ministerial Decision, ‘we will cover the 10,000 businesses that remain closed.‘.

303,017 applications for the refundable advance payment 5

The Minister of Finance also provided the latest figures on the number of applications submitted. According to the relevant data from AADE, 303,017 applications have been accepted, amounting to €1.05 billion. “We paid out approximately €640 million yesterday. We will make another payment tomorrow,” said Mr. Staikouras, reminding that the platform will close on February 2 and will remain open only for the above-mentioned cases.

Responding to criticism from his MP SYRIZA K. Papanatsiou, that one in two companies were left without a refundable advance payment, Mr. Staikouras said that this did not happen and that the state imposed a stricter framework, starting from the fourth refundable payment. According to our data, Mr. Staikouras said, Approximately 40% of businesses saw an increase in turnover in the last four months of 2020 compared to 2019.. He cited the catering sector as an example, where 24,534 businesses were eligible. However, 9,434 had increased their turnover, Mr. Staikouras said, explaining that these were food delivery businesses, while, conversely, There was an increase in turnover in pharmacies and other businesses.. Mr. Staikouras also noted that there were many companies that were unable to prove a minimum turnover of €150 per month for 2019.

Finally, he said that how the government will act on this issue in the coming period depends on how the real economy develops, “but I can confirm that there will be a sixth refundable advance payment in March, covering January and February.”.