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Russia’s government to expand support measures for business

The Russian PM said that the government is taking daily measures to minimize the negative impact of the pandemic on citizens and businesses

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin Dmitry Astakhov/POOL/TASS

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin

© Dmitry Astakhov/POOL/TASS

MOSCOW, March 31. /TASS/. The Russian government will continue to monitor the situation, expand and adjust the list of measures to support entrepreneurs who are experiencing difficulties amid the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Tuesday.

"We will continue to monitor the development of the situation, expand and adjust the list of measures to support entrepreneurs," he said.

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According to him, the Russian government is taking daily measures to minimize the negative impact of the pandemic on citizens and businesses. Mishustin noted that under the current conditions, close coordination of all branches of government is important. He recalled that on March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced a number of initiatives to support citizens and the stable functioning of the economy. In less than a day, the government worked out the relevant bills and submitted them to the State Duma, while the deputies promptly worked on it "and already today they are passing them in three readings at once."

Mishustin pointed out the importance of a number of initiatives proposed by the president, in particular regarding tax breaks - a six-month deferral of all tax payments (except VAT) for small and medium-sized businesses, a deferral of insurance premiums for microenterprises, a six-month moratorium on bankruptcy and the recovery of fines.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 160 countries, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 799,000 people have been infected worldwide and over 38,700 have died, while more than 169,000 have recovered.

A total of 2,337 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, while 121 patients have recovered. According to current data, 17 coronavirus-related deaths were reported in Russia.

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