The 60/40 wage support scheme becomes 80/20 for tourism and transport sector

The 60/40 wage support measure will become 80/20 for the tourism and transport industry, and a new grant scheme to support the transport sector will be launched in July. This became clear at an emergency meeting on June 15 between relevant ministers, carriers and tour operators. The post-crisis recovery will be slow and difficult, with the decline in both sectors being over 70%.

The 60/40 scheme, according to which the state will finance 60% of the insurable income of employees remaining on payroll during the coronavirus crisis if the employer contributes the remaining 40%, will become 80/ 20 and will cover the tourism sector. Transport and tourism companies will receive BGN 290 per month per employee.

The sector will recover slowly and with difficulty, and it is uncertain whether it will reach its pre-crisis levels, the experts of the ministries of transport, tourism and social policy, as well as the industry said.

However, large bus operating companies that continued to carry passengers during the pandemic months remain outside the state aid scheme.

Rosen Zhelyazkov, Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications: We are developing a new measure to the amount of about BGN 30 million, to be directed by OP "TTI" to OP "Innovation and Competitiveness" to support enterprises in bus transport sector. It is about 1400 companies, licensed carriers, for which the measure will be in the form of grant.

Financial grants are also being developed for the tourism sector - travel companies and agencies will be able to apply for between BGN 30 000 and 100,000.

Nikolina Angelkova, Minister of Tourism: What we discussed in terms of liquidity is the new measures to be taken under the OP "Innovation and Competitiveness" in relation to medium-sized enterprises for grant schemes from BGN 30 000 to 100,000, as well as the possibility of improving the measures that already exist in terms of how quickly they should be applied.

The BGN 290, which is paid to an employee in the transport companies, will also be applied for the tourism companies.

Denitsa Sacheva, Minister of Labour and Social Policy: The programme that will hire unemployed - this programme for BGN 160 million, which was already announced to you before, BGN 50 million will be allocated specifically for the "Tourism" sector as a priority, so that people who are registered in the unemployment offices can be hired in the tourism sector and receive BGN 610, which is the amount of the minimum monthly wage, and the insurance will be at the expense of the employer.

Currently, the decline in the tourism sector is 70%. The first charter flights are expected on June 25. Travel companies need fresh money.

Odyssei Spasov, Bulgarian Association of Travel Agencies: To be able to get some liquidity from the Bulgarian Development Bank and specifically from the commercial banks we work with. The point is to have clear conditions that the banks give, because there is a lot of speculation on their part.

It turns out that almost all measures in the transport sector do not cover large bus operating companies.

Georgi Atanasov, owner of a bus operating company: Throughout the epidemic, buses of large companies were providing transportation services. These large companies are excluded from any grant funding.

Magdalena Miltenova, Confederation of Bus Carriers: It is a fact that liquidity is extremely important to us, it is a fact that there is a delay in these measures, but there are specific commitments that this thing will happen as soon as possible.

Large companies have hundreds of employees, buses and hundreds of thousands of BGN turnover per month, which automatically excludes them from government funding schemes.