Τhe Government will spend an additional 250 mln euro to fight the pandemic and support the economy and therefore the financial deficit is estimated to reach 3.8% of the GDP, Finance Minister Constantinos Petrides has said.
Addressing the House Finance Committee with Ministers of Labor, Zeta Emilianidou and Health, Constantinos Ioannou, where they presented the additional budget approved by the Cabinet last week, the Minister noted that the Government pledged from the very first moment that it will support the employees and the businesses, it will be present next to the patients throughout the pandemic and the additional budget is doing exactly that.
Petrides said that the growth rate is estimated to be 3.5% in 2021 from 4.5% which was the previous estimate. The estimate for 2022 is 3.8%.
Labor Minister Zeta Emilianidou said that 140 mln euro will go towards the support of the employees` income until next June, and this amount includes 30 mln euro for the support of the self employed and the businesses which will be allocated by April 12.
Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou said that an amount of 60 mln is spent for the pandemic strategy which includes three pillars; tests, inoculations and health protocols, noting that an additional 50 mln euro has been secured for extraordinary expenditure in the fight against the pandemic crisis. He said in particular that last week more than 350,000 tests were carried out to detect the virus.
The Finance Minister in his statements noted that the pandemic has been going on for 14 months now and therefore the growth rate has been affected. Petrides noted however the positive effects from the Recovery and Resilience Facility of the EU.
As regards the request by many political parties to subsidize the rents, the Minister noted that the support given already by the government is far more generous that the pleas of the parties.
Emilianidou in her statements said that more than 700 mln euro were spent by the government as a result of the ongoing pandemic and the government decided to continue with the various schemes based on the epidemiological figures.
Health Minister referred to the high number of tests Cyprus is conducting, adding that no other country has such a mass testing program of its population. He said that if we had not carried out so many tests, we wouldn’t have been able to lift some of the restrictions on February 1st and keep up with the relaxations.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Christina Yiannaki said that so far the government paid 19 mln euro for PCR and rapid tests.
(11.1 for PCR and 1.5 mln for rapid tests and 5.4 for the purchase of rapid test kits).
She said that 2.66 mln rapid tests were purchased by the Government and 75,000 were given to the Turkish Cypriot community.