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Italy plans to reopen

Italy plans to reopen

brown and white open signage on green grasses
Italy, the first Western nation to shut down, is now in the vanguard of moves to cautiously reopen its economy. From May 4, shops like Ferraro’s can provide takeaways, and they will fully restart from June 1.
But the aid deployment figures so far are worrying for business leaders and politicians alike.
The government says debt guarantees made available by the state can unlock up to €740 billion ($803 billion) in funding for businesses which have been crippled by a seven-week lockdown.
So far just €3.1 billion in funds have been released, the Treasury said at the weekend. Of that, only €115 million are in the form of loans worth up to €25,000 fully secured by the state, which do not require banks to perform credit analyses on borrowers.
The financial stakes are higher for Italy than many others in Europe because its economy was faltering even before COVID-19, and the pandemic hit hardest in the northern industrial heartlands that generate a third of its output.
If loan lifelines arrive too late for the 2.1 million firms which have been unable to operate, Rome will likely fail to prevent a raft of bankruptcies despite aid spending which is set to push public debt to 156 percent of GDP this year, economists say.

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