As part of the 'Policy Support for Industrial Resilience' online webinar which took place on the 26-06-2020, Marek Duda, the representative of Polish Partner (Rzeszow Regional Development Agency), presented some actions that are taken by RRDA to fight the negative influence of the coronavirus pandemic on entrepreneurs.
The first project, titled “Liquidity loans for entrepreneurs from Podkarpackie Voivodeship” is announced as extraordinary call of the 1.3 point of the Regional Operational Program of the Podkarpackie Region and is run by Polish Partner – Rzeszow Regional Development Agency. It’s been seen till now, that the pandemic influenced entrepreneurship in our region and it’s necessary to run such activity. The total amount of funds for the whole project is assumed to be about 9 mln EUR (37 PLN mln). The project duration is planned for 10 months – 01.02.2020-31.12.2020. Each company may get a loan total of 150 000 EUR that has to be repaid withing 6 years,. The money can be used for salaries payment, all fees related to running a business, or to buy items.
The second example was the project of liquidity grants for Micro and Small Entrepreneurs. The Management Board of the Podkarpackie Region as the Managing Authority of the Podkarpackie Regional Operational Program for the years 2014–2020 announced the call for an extraordinary project funding under the Regional Operational Program of the Podkarpackie Region for the years 2014–2020 for a project implemented by the Rzeszow Regional Development Agency under priority axis I of the "Competitive and innovative economy", measure 1.6 "Grants for working capital for micro and small enterprises".
Support will be provided to micro and small enterprises, i.e. those employing less than 50 employees and whose annual turnover or annual balance sheet total does not exceed EUR 10 million from the Podkarpackie Region, who conducted business activity as at December 31, 2019, were not in a difficult situation and found themselves after that day in a situation of sudden shortage or lack of liquidity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, such an entrepreneur recorded a decrease in turnover of at least 30% in any month after February 1, 2020 compared to the previous month or the same month last year. At the same time, it is required that the entrepreneur applying for the grant as at December 31, 2019 or as at the date of granting support is not in arrears with payments of taxes and social security contributions.
The amount of support depends on the number of employees (converted into full-time employees) and is the product of the unit rate of EUR 1 867.86, the second-degree element of the number of full-time employees in the enterprise and the number of months for which the entrepreneur applies for support (maximum 3).
