Euro Weekly News - Costa Blanca North 29 October - 4 November 2020 Issue 1843

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The people’s paper ISSUE NO. 1843

News

COSTA BLANCA NORTH • WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM

FREE • GRATIS

HOPE FOR HELP

REPRESENTATIVES from seven Benidorm hospitality and in­ dustry­linked industries visited Madrid last week. They were received by Igna­ cio Diaz, a high­ranking official and spokesman at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, together with Miguel Sanz, director of Turespaña, which promotes tourism out­ side Spain. The representatives per­ suaded the Spain’s govern­ ment to review the possibility of applying the ERTE furlough scheme introduced during the State of Alarm to their sectors. “Since the start of the Covid­ 19 pandemic, takings have fall­ en between 50 and 60 per cent and now we are approaching the worst time of year,” said Raul Parra, president of shop­ keepers’ association, AICO. “We need the government to act now and come up with solutions to prevent dozens of businesses from closing.” The Ministry assured the

Photo credit: ABRECA

29 Oct - 4 Nov 2020

MADRID MEETING: Representatives from Benidorm’s tourism-linked sectors at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism.

Benidorm where many are finding it impossible to pay the high rents. Diaz also assured the Benidorm delegation that the central government is currently working on a 12­month exten­ sion of the deadline for repay­ ing Institute of Official Credit (ICO) loans. These would ordinarily come due next March or April, but business­owners will instead be given a year to try to sta­ bilise their finances before hav­ ing to pay up, AICO and ABRE­ CA revealed after the meeting. “The meeting had some good things, like these two an­ nouncements,” Parra said.

Turn to page 2 » Benidorm associations that the government is planning future benefits. These include non­re­ payable grants towards renting commercial premises, a per­ manent headache for small and medium­businesses espe­ cially in municipalities like


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