By Tasos Dasopoulos
From the beginning of 2022, the Ministry of Finance is expected to activate the full plan for subsidies and aid to small and medium-sized enterprises, with a total budget of 1.5 billion euros.
The aid will take two forms: direct grants for actions related to digital transformation, primary production and tourism, and the use of low-interest loans from the Development Fund for partnerships and mergers and the development of export activity in existing or new foreign markets.
These programs were scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2021. However, the delay in signing the operational contract of the Recovery and Resilience Fund with the EU. postponed their start for a few months.
At the beginning of the year, the bill on the incentives for collaborations, mergers and acquisitions will be passed and now the package of programs will be able to be implemented.
The subsidized programs
First, the subsidy programs will be implemented, which concern:
– The digital transformation of companies, with a budget of 375 million euros. The program will subsidize up to 100% the digital transformation of small and medium enterprises in order to improve their operation and competitiveness by integrating new technologies of electronic payments, remote work, digital office (document management, projects, etc.), digital marketplace, cybersecurity, etc. with criteria for dispersal of aid and emphasis on coverage of smaller companies.
– The diversification of the tourist product, with a budget of 260 million euros. By the same logic, a subsidy will be provided for the development and diversification of the tourist product, with interventions for mountain tourism, health and wellness tourism (use of thermal springs), agritourism and gastronomy, the upgrading of tourist ports, diving tourism. , accessibility to beaches.
-The support of the agri-food sector, with a budget of 520 million euros. This very ambitious intervention aims in combination with other programs of the Ministry of Development to focus farmers on green agriculture and precision agriculture, the creation of partnerships between similar or complementary sectors that can combine companies and cooperative schemes of primary, secondary and tertiary aimed at innovation and extroversion. The subsidies also include contract farming.
Incentives for collaborations-mergers
At the beginning of 2022, the Parliament will pass the bill to provide incentives for mergers and collaborations of small and medium enterprises with the aim of increasing their size, obtaining a banking profile and, finally, the creation of more competitive enterprises inside and outside Greece. The main incentive that will be given will be a reduction of tax by 30% for three years of the new business that will result from a merger or cooperation of companies.
However, the new company will be able to be supported by the loans of the Recovery Fund, which, as is known, have an interest rate of 0.35% and a repayment horizon of 5 to 10 years. New businesses will have to submit a business plan to the bank they work with, which will evaluate and approve or reject the application. Depending on the financial situation of the new company that will result from the merger, the investment will be financed at a rate of 30% to 50% of its total budget.
Export companies
A second category of small and medium-sized enterprises that will be strengthened by the loans of the Recovery Fund are the export enterprises with the aim of creating partnerships and strengthening their international presence.
Depending on the percentage of turnover of a company produced by export activity can be increased from 30% to 50% with loans of the Recovery Fund with an interest rate of 0.35% with a repayment period of up to 15 years. The aid can be combined with other state aid (eg aid from the development law) up to the limit of state aid for this category of enterprises.
These loans can be used to improve the production of standardization and distribution of products with markets outside Greece, while for the first time up to 30% of the support from the Recovery Fund can be used for marketing expenses or working capital, which is very important for small and medium-sized enterprises throughout Greece that already have export activity.
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Source From: Capital
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