Companies flock for state loans

The fifth phase of the cheap state loans program - launched when the effects of the pandemic started to become evident - has seen an unprecedented number of applications, illustrating the extent to which companies have suffered due to the health crisis as well as the favorable prospects for businesses that will only have to pay back 50% of the credit issued to them.

Up until Thursday afternoon, some 475,000 applications had been submitted for the ongoing stage of the program known as the "Deposit To Be Returned," and this will grow further if the government decides to extend the process.

Nevertheless, a senior Finance Ministry official stressed that the sum to be disbursed will remain at 1.5 billion euros, which means that smaller loans will be disbursed in the fifth phase than in the fourth, when about 458,000 enterprises received a total of €2.2 billion.

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