Since last Friday, all shopping centers of more than 10,000 square meters have had to close their doors, in the 23 departments under surveillance.
Read also: Covid-19: which shopping centers are closed in your city?
Centers of more than 20,000 squares have suffered the same fate since January, across the country.
So hundreds of shops have had to temporarily stop their activity while continuing to pay their fixed charges - among them, the rent.
The Ministry of the Economy now plans to take over the payment of the rent of certain shops, with an envelope of 500 million euros, according to information from BFM Business.
Read also: Covid-19: which shopping centers are closed in your city?
Concretely, companies will be concerned, in particular chain stores, which have both closed shops in shopping centers and open shops in other places - city centers, for example.
Their activity is therefore only partially stopped by health measures, which deprives them of certain aid already in place, explains the Ministry of the Economy.
Set up in a month
In fact, aid is planned for companies that are completely closed due to health measures, or whose turnover has fallen by more than 50%.
In these cases, the State covers 80% of the loss, with a ceiling of 10,000 euros.
However, a chain of stores of which only a part of the stores are located in a shopping center could lose less than 50% of its turnover.
It would therefore not benefit from the solidarity fund.
It is for this particular case that the government is planning a specific mechanism.
To benefit from it, companies will have to pay their rent directly to their lessor, then send their rent receipt and rental charges to Bercy, which will pay them at 100%.
Read also: Abandonment of business rents: landlords are wary of the tax credit
The Ministry of the Economy has been planning for several weeks now to help the brands present in shopping centers.
“
We will deal in particular with the issue of rents which, I know, is the most sensitive issue for these large shopping centers and for these businesses.
The rents will be covered,
the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire indicated on RTL at the
beginning of February.
And, I made the commitment on Saturday, I spoke with all these representatives of the shopping centers: it is perfectly normal that from the moment we close them, they have no charges to assume
”.
The device envisaged by Bercy should enter into force in about a month, after advice from Brussels.
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