QATAR'S private sector is playing an important role in stimulating country’s economic growth. In order to support businesses affected with the COVID-19, the Cabinet on Wednesday announced economic support package for private sector. The steps announced by the Cabinet will be very effective in helping the businesses, especially the small and medium enterprises, in facing the challenges posed the spread of coronavirus.
The measures include exemption from electricity and water fees for closed sectors until the end of September 2021 and extension of the National Guarantees Program at Qatar Development Bank until the end of September 2021. It also includes extension of the period of the exemption from interest for an additional year for the National Guarantees Program to become two years without interest, in addition to two years of payment with interest that does not exceed the Qatar Central Bank rate +2 percent. The support package also includes raising the limits of funding salaries and wages for closed sectors to QR15m for a single identity card, while retaining the rest of the relevant terms and conditions.
Qatar has made great progress in containing the spread of COVID-19 because of its successful vaccination programme. Until Wednesday, over 1,168,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered in Qatar since the start of the national vaccination program. The percentage of people who received the first dose of vaccination reached 27 percent of the total number of population and the percentage of people who received the two doses is 15 percent of the total population.
Qatar has reached another major milestone for the National COVID-19 Vaccination Programme with 81 percent of people over 60 years of age having now received at least one vaccine dose since the start of the programme.
This is an important achievement as data in Qatar has showed that within the over-60 years age group, non-vaccinated people are 40 times more likely to be admitted to ICU than those who are fully vaccinated. Due to the success of vaccination programme, Qatar now ranks ninth in the world in terms of the proportion of people who have received vaccination.
All the indicators show that the fight against COVID-19 will be over soon. Due to the proactive steps taken by the government and with close cooperation of all the stakeholders, Qatar will emerge stronger from this challenging situations created by the spread of coronavirus.
