The government's intention to a reduction of 80% in retail and catering rents for the months of January and February, made known from the podium Parliament, the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who also announced the opening of the 5th round repayable advance, for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The reduction, which concerns retail trade, catering, as well as businesses in the field of culture and sport, provides for simultaneous compensation from the State to the owners of the properties by 60%.
At the same time, Mitsotakis defended his choice of click away, telling small businessmen that, in any case and regardless of the coronavirus, should become familiar with the tools of e-commerce.
The Prime Minister clarified that 60% of the rents will be compensated to the property owners, so they don't have any further losses. Businesses will pay only 20% of the rent,He stressed and explained that if someone pays 1,000 euros in rent, they will pay 200 euros in January and February.
At the same time he announced that the refundable advance payment 5 in January is going ahead. It will have a threshold aid at 1,000 euros for businesses, freelancers, scientists, farmers, who show a drop in turnover by 20%.
Click away is doing well - The future in e-commerce
The Prime Minister said that he is fully aware of the difficulties the market is experiencing and understands how painful it is for a large part of economic activity to remain closed. But he recalled the recent European experience, with governments in many countries recalling their initial decision to partially lift the lockdown, with the sharp increase in cases in recent times.
«We will do everything we can to facilitate the retail sector, to save as much of the turnover as we can and we will not apologise for it,» the prime minister said, and asked the opposition, «What is the alternative you are proposing? To open the shops or to keep them completely closed?»
Regarding the click away, Mitsotakis said: «So far, the picture I have is that click away works well. It facilitates and addresses the problem of the collapse of Courier companies.».
The Prime Minister even indirectly defended the courier companies, citing the figures quoted earlier by Development Minister Adonis Georgiades that from 100,000 packages a day they reached 500,000.
He described the click away as «a breath of fresh air, a relief for the retail sector which is being tested».
Referring to the budget issue as a whole, he admitted that its implementation is «a major challenge for the European Parliament.«a dynamic equation with many unknowns», while in an attempt to justify the government's policy choices in dealing with the economic consequences of the coronavirus, he referred to «small losses in income» and for «avoiding an explosion of unemployment in the country».
