Already Central banks has declared moratorium schemes for SMEs... Similarly, COVID-19 SL IDEAthon is an initiative taken to create a platform for tech enthusiasts, university students, industry experts and passionate general public to ideate, brainstorm, conceptualize and implement solutions to support the drive towards curtailing the COVID-19 outbreak. This initiative will be beneficial to engage the general public who are isolated and self-quarantined at their respective homes to contribute towards a national requirement inculcating their knowledge. The novel ideas generated through this initiative will be evaluated by an expert advisory panel and selected ideas will be utilized islandwide to control the current situation in the country through technology.
https://mic.lk/covid19-sl-ideathon/
Case if Italy,
… Many sectors of the Italian economy, which is largely based on family- owned small businesses, are suffering …
Lazzerini, M., & Putoto, G. (2020). COVID-19 in Italy: momentous decisions and many uncertainties. The Lancet Global Health.
In Ghana there are many responses among which include a soft loan scheme up to a total of GH¢600 million (about US$120 million) for SMEs. Others include some social policies regarding reduction in electricity and water. Firms that donate towards the Covid19 fund set up by the country are also said to be receiving some tax benefits.
Alizah, in addition to digitalisation, short and potentially longer term financial packages, connectivity with a larger pool of other business networks for knowledge generation, transfer and use, the human capacity of SMEs could also benefit from additional and relevant training in line with the new demands and challenges that small to medium firms are beginning to experience. Interesting.
In the country in which I operate, certain instruments of anti-crisis socio-economic policy, monetary policy, fiscal policy, social policy, etc. have been applied. development of the global financial crisis in 2008. In many countries, most companies from the SME sector survived the period of a strong economic downturn caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) coronavirus pandemic thanks to subsidies received from the state under the so-called Anti-crisis shields, ie thanks to non-returnable subsidies, which made it possible to survive the period of no orders, no customers, no sales revenues, etc. Without these subsidies, a significant part of business entities would have to suspend their business activities during the economic crisis. On the other hand, thanks to these subsidies, companies which practically did not carry out their activity, however, were not closed and employees were not fired. The idea was to limit the scale of decline in economic growth and unemployment at the expense of an increase in the debt of the state finance system and possibly at the expense of an increase in inflation. This type of interventionist, anti-crisis socio-economic policy can be conducted in most countries by max. several weeks or several months. In the longer term, public debt could grow to a dangerous level in the context of maintaining financial system stability. In many countries, when the aforementioned Crisis Shields were introduced in March and April 2020, they were planned for a period of max. several weeks or several months, which was also correlated with the forecasts regarding the development of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, at least the first wave of the development of coronavirus infections and the development of the pandemic, and the acquisition of natural social immunity by society to this virus. In the country in which I operate and in some other countries, already in March and April 2020, pro-development, interventionist, anti-crisis programs were launched to save economic entities from mass bankruptcy by introducing additional temporary tax reliefs or exemptions, subsidies to employee salaries as part of the fiscal policy . On the other hand, as part of monetary policy, central banks have lowered interest rates, launch loans to commercial banks on preferential terms, purchase lost loans from commercial banks and / or implement Treasury bond buyback programs to maintain liquidity in the state's commercial and public financial system. There is more and more evidence that the direct impact of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic (causing the Covid-19 disease) on the economy is smaller than the indirect impact of applying a specific interventionist, anti-crisis socio-economic policy, including budgetary, fiscal, monetary instruments, etc., including the applied specific instruments to activate entrepreneurship, social instruments of financial support for citizens, applied tax and quasi-tax reliefs for enterprises, applied possibilities of deferring bank loan repayments, lowering interest rates on loans, the possibility of cost-free suspension of business activity, subsidies to remuneration of employees from budget funds countries in order to reduce the scale of unemployment growth etc. state, the scale of the issue of additional domestic money in order to purchase by the central bank from commercial banks unserviced lost loans and junk securities, etc. Analysis of all these components of the applied anti-crisis, interventionist socio-economic policy, its effects in terms of reducing the scale of the decline in economic growth, stopping unemployment growth, decreasing incomes, etc. costs in public finances of the state of these anti-crisis programs, allows to assess the impact of these measures on the national economy and also the indirect impact of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic on the economy. Some countries introduce a minimum income guaranteed for citizens. In individual countries, different arguments are given for such a social and economic policy. In the following publication, I have described the key arguments for the legitimacy of introducing the Family 500 Plus Program in Poland, which is a kind of such an instrument of social policy. Guaranteed income as an important element of pro-development social policy may stimulate consumption and act pro-cyclically. Therefore, guaranteed income may be an important element of the anti-crisis socio-economic policy aimed at reviving economic processes and restoring optimal prosperity after the economic crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) coronavirus pandemic. On the other hand, through the so-called Anti-crisis shields (activated anti-crisis instruments of socio-economic policy, etc.) public debt will increase significantly, therefore the risk of instability and a significant reduction in the level of security of the state finance system and the risk of destabilization of the situation on financial markets will increase significantly. At present, it is extremely difficult to determine which factors will trigger a larger economic crisis in individual countries in a few weeks or months, i.e. whether a pandemic crisis or specific interventionist measures applied. As it is difficult to diagnose which factors will turn out to be the main sources of the crisis in the real economy, it is even more difficult to forecast the situation on the financial markets nowadays. This difficulty results mainly from the new categories of risks that currently arise or are defined in the context of economic development, shaping the pace of economic growth in the real economy, and in the context of the functioning of financial institutions and the situation on financial markets.
Best regards,
Dariusz Prokopowicz