Today’s Huadu News: In order to implement the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinpingon wining the defensive battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak with resolution, and to carry out plans of the state, Guangdong province, and Guangzhou city in fight the epidemic, Huadu District rolls out 6 “Fight Epidemic and Warm Enterprises” measures to help enterprises through the current difficulties.

　　  Measure 1, help enterprises resume to work

　　  (1) Give precise instructions.27 temporary Party Branches of epidemic prevention supervision and service working groups were created and sent to enterprises to instruct epidemic control and resumption of work.

　　  (2) Resume to work in an orderly way.The assistance and instruction follow the principle of “one policy and one plan for one enterprise”; those key enterprises that have proper epidemic prevention mechanism, employee screening, material preparation, and internal management may resume to work in an orderly fashion after record filing with, and approval by, the epidemic control authority.

　　  (3) Increase material supply.Work hard to promote both epidemic control and production; focus on the things that trouble the enterprises; do everything possible to secure facemasks and other supplies for epidemic control from all possible sources; support enterprise to resume to work, and spare no effort to prevent massive infections.

　　  Measure 2, warm enterprises during the tough time

　　  (4) Reduce rents.Two month’s worth of rent will be waived for SMEs that are taxpayers registered in the District and rent their premises from state-owned enterprises under the District. Where the premises are from other sources, it is recommended that the owners waive one month’s worth of rent; and the details will be left to the parties to the lease agreement to decide. The rents so waived will be taken into account during annual performance review of the state-owned enterprise involved. Federations of industry and commerce, industry associations, and chambers of commerce will be organized to actively help enterprises of their respective industry with rent waivers. Owners and operators of industrial parks, and sci-tech business incubators are encouraged to offer rent waivers to their SME tenants. The rents must be waived to the benefit of actual business operators and tenants.

　　  (5) Reduce or exempt taxes.Timely give instructions about and implement the inclusive tax reduction or exemption policies for SMEs in industries that are heavily hit by the outbreak, such as wholesale and retail, lodge and catering, logistics and transportation, and culture and tourism. Assets losses of SMEs resulting from the outbreak may be deducted before enterprise income tax in accordance with the law. SMEs that are producers of epidemic fighting materials or are heavily hit by the epidemic will have high priority in the application of relevant tax reduction or exemption policies.

　　  (6) Defer tax payment During the epidemic control period, those enterprises that are prevented from paying taxes on time by the outbreak may be, according to law, allowed to submit their returns on a later date; and for those eligible for deferred payment of taxes, they may be allowed to do so as authorized by law. The process of deferred tax payment approval will be accelerated for SMEs producing epidemic fighting materials.

　　  Measure 3, offer financial aids

　　  (7) Maintain credit balance.Banking institutions are encouraged to step up their support to SMEs, and to ensure that the credit balance of 2020 will not be lower than that of 2019. They should refrain from prematurely recovering, or terminating, or holding backs loans with SMEs in industries that are heavily hit by the outbreak, such as wholesale and retail, lodge and catering, logistics and transportation, and culture and tourism, and promising enterprises that encounter temporary difficulties. Active actions will be taken to coordinate financial institutions of all kinds to offer deferred repayment or extended loans to enterprise in order to help them through.

　　  (8) Lower financing costs.Banking institutions are encouraged to lower financing costs; they should step up support to key enterprises in wholesale and retail, lodge and catering, logistics and transportation, and culture and tourism industries, offering lower loan interest rates. The goal is to keep enterprises’ financing costs in 2020 are not higher than those in 2019.

　　  (9) Step up support to green finance.Relying on the national green finance reform and innovation pilot zone and taking advantage of the 5 green banking branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Bank of Communications, active measure will be taken to contact and offer customized financial services to SMEs affected by the outbreak; the goal is to grow loans to SMEs by 30% in 2020. With enhanced government financial support, green loans to enterprises may be entitled to fiscal subsidies up to 1 million.

　　  (10) Create green approval channel.During the epidemic, financial institutions of the District shall take initiative to contact enterprises, and create green approval channel for enterprises affected by the outbreak; pursuant to the principle of “special and urgent matters shall be handled in a special and urgent way”, business process will be simplified to accelerated approval and release of loans, especially the handling of excess VAT refund. Financial institutions will give high priority to the handling of insurance claims filed by clients who are infected by novel coronavirus pneumonia virus or suffered losses due to the epidemic; and in doing so, they should appropriately expand the insurance coverage and pay eligible compensation in full. All support will be given to SMEs with financing needs to apply to financing support projects of the state, Guangdong and Guangzhou.

　　  Measure 4, stabilize employment

　　  (11) Maintain a stable work force. Policy to stabilize employment will be implemented; unemployment insurance floating premium rates will be temporarily lowered till the end of December 2020, in which contribution factors will be lowered, from 0.6 to 0.4, or from 0.8 to 0.6 respectively. The workplace injury insurance floating premium rate system will continue to apply. An ensured company may be eligible to 50% of the total unemployment insurance premium it actually paid last year if it is in compliance with the requirements of no laying off, or minimum laying off; the refund policy will continue to be applicable to an ensured company which is faced with temporary operational difficulties yet still sticking to the principle of no laying off or minimum laying off; the application criteria and refund standards will be subject to relevant rules of the state, the province, and the city; and the application will be wholly internet based, and the approval process will be simplified to guarantee fast results.

　　  (12) Postpone the payment of social insurance charges. Employers that are prevented by the epidemic from paying premium on time for endowment insurance, unemployment insurance, workplace injury insurance, medical insurance, (maternity insurance included) may be allowed to pay it within 3 months after the epidemic without having to pay any late payment fees.

　　  Measure 5 help to build stronger companies

　　  (13) Companies engaged in emergency response will be rewarded. Full support will be given to enterprises to fight the epidemic; if a SME registered as taxpayer in the District purchased new equipment or expanded its factory building for the purpose of producing, or switching to produce, materials needed to control the epidemic, and began production by the end of February, it will be eligible to a one-off subsidy equivalent to 50% of the additional investment, but not exceeding 500,000 yuan. A one-off reward up to 100,000 yuan will be given to key supermarket outlets (with a business area of 10,000 m2or above), special wholesale marketplaces of vegetable, grain and oil, and hotels that are designated for reception, medical observation, and accommodation of medical personnel during the epidemic.

　　  (14) Offer high rewards to enterprises seeking to improve quality and efficiency. Enterprises are encouraged to increase R&D investment, to innovate, to upgrade, and to launch new projects. If a company registered as taxpayer in the District spends more than 10 million yuan in R&D and 10% more than last year, it will be eligible to a reward equivalent to 30% of the exceeding part of its contribution to the local economy than last year, but not exceeding 10 million yuan.

　　  Measure 6 Precise services

　　  (15) Create special consulting hotline for fighting epidemic.A special consulting hotline for fighting epidemic will be created to provide round-the-clock services related to laws, policies, labor disputes solution both on- and off-line, contract performance and other legal disputes in order to protect legal rights and interests of enterprises.

　　  (16) Give full support to exportation. Active measures will be taken to assist SMEs that are prevented from performing, or performing on time, their international trade contracts by the epidemic in applying with China Council for the Promotion of International Trade for certification of force majeure. As for enterprisesthat participatethe pilot project of export through market purchase trade during the epidemic control period, coordination will be made with the customs, CBIRC, and other authorities to reduce rates of charge and raise subsidies to export credit insurance premium for them.

　　  This policy shall come into effect on the date when it is printed and issued and remain valid till Dec. 31, 2020. Other supporting policies given by the state, Guangdong province, and Guangzhou city will also be applicable in Huadu; and enterprise eligible to this policy may also receive supports from other policies of the District.