December 23 (BTA) - The Council of Ministers has decided at a working meeting that flights from the UK are resuming from Wednesday noon, the government information service said. Arrivals will be tested with antigen tests and must quarantine for 10 days. A negative PCR test result no older than 72 hours from the flight will be required on arrival as of January 1. A ban was imposed on those flights on Sunday evening amid fears about a new variant of coronavirus that the authorities in the UK say is more infectious that other strains detected so far.

The government also decided to extend the 60/40 job retention scheme and discussed the results of other measures in support of people and businesses dealing with the pandemic's impact.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said the 60/40 job retention scheme, which was to end in March, was extended until September 2021 to rule out any speculation that it had anything to do with the parliamentary elections next spring. Next week the Council of Ministers will allocate 106 million leva for the payment in January of the pensioners' 50-lev allowance introduced in July in response to the pandemic.

Labour and Social Policy Minister Denitsa Sacheva summed up the government's support through three socio-economic measures. A total of 627 million leva have been paid under the 60/40 job retention programme to keep 250,000 jobs. The 80/20 measure has paid out 23 million leva to businesses in the hospitality industry, tourism and transport to retain 24,858 jobs. Also, 23,520 out of 40,000 applicant families with children currently involved in distance learning have been approved for targeted support.

Economy Minister Lachezar Borisov said that over 40 million leva would be extended to small and medium-sized enterprises. Ninety-five contracts were signed in December as part of a procedure improving the production capacity of SMEs under Operational Programme (OP) Innovation and Competitiveness. Under the same OP, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises have received 450 vouchers for ICT services worth nearly 8 million leva. The National Innovation Fund was instrumental in the signing of all 25 contracts for financing of innovation projects worth 7 million leva.

Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said 50 million leva would be paid by the year's end to more than 50 hospitals which have maintained 50 per cent of their capacity and over 50 per cent of bed occupancy for patients with infections diseases and COVID-19. RY/DD

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