National Liberal Party (PNL) spokesperson Ionel Danca states in a post made on his social media page on Sunday that "we must all understand a very simple thing, regardless of our political choice, no matter how many efforts the government is making, if we don't stop together the spread of COVID-19, it will be increasingly difficult to return to normalcy and revive the economy."

"I start this post by saying very clearly that economic recovery is our priority and that we do not want any other restrictions that could affect the economy. Unfortunately, we are in a new day with over 1000 infections. The vacuum of legislation to combat the spread of infections with the new coronavirus, caused by irresponsible political and legal attacks in the midst of the pandemic, combined with obscure propaganda to discredit the danger of Covid-19, have brought us back to a limit situation. The time is not easy from a health perspective and our whole plan to relaunch the economy now depends on a common, collective, national effort to respect the rules for limiting the spread of the epidemic with the new coronavirus," underlines the PNL representative.

He points out that since the beginning of the pandemic, the Orban Government has swiftly taken all necessary support measures to save jobs and companies from bankruptcy, and further, at every Government meeting, "at an unprecedented pace," new government programs have been adopted for economic recovery.

"The SME Invest program has almost exhausted the ceiling of 15 billion lei for investments and working capital loans, we paid the furlough benefit of 75% of the average gross salary worth 4.6 billion lei for 1.4 million Romanians, we are still paying 41.5% of the average gross salary for employees returning to work, we have postponed bank installments for 300,000 beneficiaries for a period of 9 months, along with many other support measures that are in force and produce effects. New economic programs from the National Investment and Economic Recovery Plan were adopted in the last Government meetings: guarantee scheme for large companies with a ceiling of 8 billion lei, SME Leasing guarantee program for the acquisition of the equipment and machinery worth 1.5 billion lei, the program for ensuring liquidity in the economy, SME Factor, by guaranteeing commercial payments between companies, raising the guarantee ceiling for the New Home for the purchase of new homes up to 140,000 Euros, over-contracting investment projects for micro-enterprises and SMEs from the Regional Operational Program with over 1 billion Euros, launching start-up programs for students worth 150 million euros and those of rural entrepreneurship for the processing of agricultural products worth 200 million Euros," highlights the PNL spokesperson.

He mentions that "other important programs in the National Plan for Investment and Economic Recovery are being finalized and are being endorsed and approved: the 1 billion euro restart grant program for companies affected by the crisis, the call for projects for the digitization of companies amounting to 150 million euros, the support of the flexible work program, the settlement of 41.5% of the salary for the seasonal workers and of 35% of the day laborers' payment."

Ionel Danca emphasizes that "all these measures of support and government investment programs in the economy depend on limiting the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic." "This is the truth, and we do not want in any case to go back to restrictions that would affect the economy. That is why it is essential not to waste everyone 's effort so far and to make a new joint effort to limit the spread of coronavirus infections," concludes the Liberal representative. AGERPRES (ROS - editor: Marius Fratila; EN - author/editor: Simona Iacob)