Many firms miss out on loans

Emergency state loans totaling 1 billion euros will be disbursed next week to 100,000 enterprises if they also consent to the terms attached. Of the 139,000 enterprises that applied to receive the low-interest loans, some 39,000 failed to meet the eligibility criteria as the authorities found they actually had higher turnover this year than in 2019.

Sources told Kathimerini that the turnover of a number of small corporations (with single-entry books) over the first quarter of 2019 was greater than in the same period of 2019, so they have been left out of the "Deposit to Be Returned" scheme at this stage; they will only qualify for loans if their April turnover considerably lags that of April 2019.

As Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said, "this program will be repeated once in May, for enterprises that post major losses in April."

If all 100,000 companies...