Govt to send 33 bln rbl to regions for additional beds, equipment

MOSCOW, Mar 30 (PRIME) -- The government will send 33.4 billion rubles to 77 Russia’s regions for additional beds in hospitals and medical equipment, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Monday.

“We will grant a subsidy of 33.4 billion rubles to 77 regions, the funds will be used for organization of additional beds for infected people in hospitals and for additional medical equipment,” he said.

Moscow City Mayor Sergei Sobyanin asked Mishustin to order private clinics to accommodate additional beds for the coronavirus patients.

The prime minister also said that the Moscow government discussed recently introduced restrictive measures with the federal government.

“The Moscow City mayor and the Moscow Region governor ordered to introduce new security measures. We had discussed them at a meeting with (Mayor) Sergei Semyonovich (Sobyanin) not long ago,” he said.

“The steps are a reasonable extension of President (Vladimir Putin) and the government’s steps to fight coronavirus.”

On March 29, Moscow and the Moscow Region announced a regime of full self-isolation for all residents. People can leave homes only for urgent medical help and purchases of staple goods in groceries and pharmacies.

Mishustin also asked Russian regions’ governments to pay attention to the restrictions and consider introduction of similar measures.

The government will monitor the financial state of systemically important companies and first of all support the industries most hurt by the spread of coronavirus, the prime minister also said.

“We will support the transportation industry, including car and air transport, and airports. We have signed an order to allocate 1.5 billion rubles from the reserve fund to compensate air carriers’ losses from delivering people (from abroad),” he said.

“We are also preparing measures to support organizations working in culture, organization of free time, entertainment, physical culture and sport. And also (restaurants). Besides, the list includes organizations of additional education, non-state educational companies, and the entire sphere of consumer services.”

Mishustin also said that payments on the existing loans of small and medium enterprises will be delayed for six months.

“For small companies, working in the impacted industries, all payments on the already existing loans will be delayed for six months. One third of the payments will be performed by the state through subsidies, and one third by banks, for a portfolio of up to 0.5 trillion rubles of loans,” he said, adding that the government will expand a special tax regime for self-employed people from July.

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