Nearly TL 36.3 billion ($5 billion) of funding has so far been allocated to a total of 39,651 firms that applied for a financing package that was launched to protect employment and support businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic, Turkey’s treasury and finance minister said Wednesday.
Around 67,229 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and industrialists have applied for the Support to Continue Working financing backed by the Credit Guarantee Fund (KGF) on the condition that they retain employees, Berat Albayrak said in a video post on Twitter.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last month announced a TL 100 billion relief package – Economic Stability Shield – to support citizens and businesses affected by the economic fallout of the outbreak.
Turkey’s confirmed cases of the coronavirus reached 65,111 as of Tuesday, while the death toll reached 1,403, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.
A total of 4,799 people have recovered so far, the minister noted.
Within the scope of TL 10,000 support for basic needs, some TL 12.1 billion has been allocated to around 2.1 million citizens, Albayrak said.
Around 412,714 applications were made for public lender Halkbank’s TL 25,000 support package, and processes were completed for 206,959, the minister noted. He added that resources allocated for tradesmen reached nearly TL 6.74 billion.
Within the scope of TL 1,000 cash aid under the scope of relief package, nearly 2.1 million families have so far received the support, Albayrak said, adding that this figure will reach 4.4 million soon.
The minister on Sunday said the country postponed TL 40.6 billion worth of housing, consumer, vehicle and credit card loans for a total of 795,000 citizens.
Public lenders, Ziraat Bank, Halkbank and VakıfBank, have allowed commercial and corporate enterprises to delay credit payments worth TL 20.5 billion.
Meanwhile, he called on private banks to do more to help customers hurt by the economic impact of the coronavirus, saying they were utterly saddened by the attitude of the private banks.
