Helping Huercal-Overa small businesses and self-employed back on their feet on Spain’s Costa Almeria

AS part of its strategy for getting the local economy back on its feet, Huercal-Overa Council is making extraordinary subsidies available to small and medium-sized businesses and to the self-employed.
There will be subsidies of up to €1,000 for those forced to close their establishments due to the coronavirus crisis and of up to €700 where the situation while not meaning a halt to their activities has resulted in a loss of at least 75 per cent of their invoicing in relation to the average for a six-month period before the State of Alarm came into force.
The measure is part of the local authority’s ‘Plan Recupera’ strategy aimed at alleviating the damaging economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on small business concerns and the self-employed and contributing to the recovery of the municipal’s trade and service structure.
Huercal-Overa mayor Francisca Lourdes Fernandez said the subsidy initiative would “support traders’ and small businesses’ recovery process, contributing to local economic development.”
She explained the council had €140,000 available from the Employment Development Area of the 2019 extended budget for a first round of subsidies, and that this will be expanded with a second round with the approval of the new budget.
The financial assistance is aimed at assisting with costs related to matters like the self-employeds’ Social Security payments, business premises rentals, maintenance, machinery, and training related to new technology.
Other measures under the local authority’s recovery assistance plan include the suspension or return of taxes, breaking down payments into instalments, allowing bars, cafes and restaurants to extend terrace space, and assistance for adapting businesses to Covid-19 infection prevention regulations.
“The goal of all these measures is to protect and drive a key sector for our municipality’s economy, and one of the most affected by the crisis, just when our businesses and small companies have to deal with reopening and the return to normality in especially tough conditions,” the mayor commented.
Subsidy requests are via the local authority’s virtual office, available on the website www.huercal-overa.es.