A new online platform, officially launched during the lockdown, aims support local businesses through this crisis and beyond, by providing them with a more traditional and local version of Amazon. With 120 businesses already signed up, 200 waiting in the wings, and 20,000 products already available, it has already proved a success. Read more here
Contact: Bruno Gourdon
Over 2,500 Small businesses in Nice have benefited from support for rent payments via a scheme of the metropole Nice Côte d’Azur. This measure has just been extended to the tourist accommodation and culture sectors. Read more here
Contact: Jérôme Sieurin
The Municipality of Guimaraes held the first in a planned series of video conferences to explain and receive feedback on measures taken to support businesses. Read more here
Restaurants and cafés will be able to share the public space without any charge in order to help this sector recover from the crisis. The city council has included this measure among the gradual exit strategy from the lockdown. More than 162 cafés, bars and restaurants have applied to inhabit the city’s public spaces with outdoor seating. Read more here
Contact: Jurga Pociūtė-Mikūtienė
Belfast City Council has established a Covid-19 brokerage platform that matches the expertise and capacity of the city’s innovator community. Bringing together the industry and the universities’ needs with the government and community organisations requirements. Visit its website here
Contact: Mark McCann
Lisbon City Council has taken a range of extraordinary measures to protect culture. These include €200,000 in immediate support to the city’s Fado houses, as well as exemptions on rent payments for both cultural institutions and individual artists operating in municipal spaces. Read more here
Contact: Jose Pedro Gonçalves
Katowice City Hall has created an online database of those companies that can offer online services, such as fitness classes or offering financial and legal advice. Read more here
Contact: Judyta Etmanska
The city of Cologne has created a database of best practices from local companies that have found innovative and creative solutions to deal with the present circumstances. This includes, for example, digital window-shopping or selling vouchers for favourite individual stores or pubs around the corner. Read more here
Contact: Uwe Korch
A new package of measures, worth 25 million PLN, exempts businesses from things like property tax, rubbish collection charges and rent in municipal buildings. Similar measures are being put in place for NGOs, as well as offering additional assistance for activities to control the coronavirus, and co-financing options for some labour costs. Read more here and here
Contact: Judyta Etmanska
Birmingham City Council is providing £230 million of financial support to approximately 16,000 eligible businesses which have been affected by the crisis. Eligible businesses work in areas such as retail, leisure and hospitality. Nurseries are also included in the financial support scheme. Read more here and here
Contact: Lloyd Broad
Barcelona’s city council is creating an initial pot of €25 million to support the city’s economic sectors in their recovery. Additionally; the deadline for paying most municipal taxes has been extended. Read more here here and here
Contact: Marta Puchal
The Glasgow City Council website is collecting all the Business Support information in one place, with details on the Coronavirus Business Support Fund and sector specific advice. The City Council has already received more than 15,000 applications, and paid more than £26 million to businesses in Glasgow from the Coronavirus Business Support Fund. Glasgow Chamber of Commerce is also supporting businesses with free webinars. Read more here and here
Contact: Joe Brady
International spirits firm Edrington has donated high strength alcohol to Glasgow City Council to increase hand sanitiser production. This first donation will allow for one thousand litres production that will be delivered to the social workers and health professionals in the front line. Read more here
Contact: Joe Brady
Cardiff Council has now distributed nearly £50m to Cardiff businesses in grant aid as part of the on-going COVID-19 financial rescue package. The city council is contacting business eligible to receive the grants offered in the support package, which covers almost all types of business. Read more here
Contact: Beverley Watson
Nantes Metropole created an online market for local producers and small shops and businesses called ‘Place du Marché en ligne’. Open air markets are closed, but they accommodate their consumers through a drive-in system: clients place their orders by phone or email and collect it at a specific day and time. The French mail service is also looking into using their vehicles to deliver food in addition to packages, while the start-up Les coursiers nantais is delivering food by bike all around the city. Read more here and here (in French)
Contact: Nicolas Joffraud
The city council designated 100 officers to process and deliver grants offered to business owners, which compound a total of £20m. This endeavour is set to help the local economy and those in need are still encouraged to apply. Read more here
Contact: Karen Lloyd
Tel Aviv has compiled a summary of the measures it has taken to tackle the crisis. The comprehensive report includes a range of measures, from contact and community activities with residents to education and social services, to technology and businesses support. The city has also dedicated a section to seizing opportunities and one to looking at the future after corona. You can download the document here.
Contact: Sharon Landes-Fischer
Brest metropolis and its local partners have created a support system to sustain the local economy. This system relies on several actions:
Small and medium enterprises and local shops in buildings owned by the Osmangazi Municipality can pay their rent later. The city council has decided to defer its receivables from its approximately 800 renters that pay their rents or occupancy taxes monthly. This decision, combined with other economic measures put in place by the local authorities, aims to relief the struggle entrepreneurs and businesses are going through in the corona crisis. Read more here (in Turkish)
Contact: Şenol Dülger
The municipality has simplified public procurement procedures for companies working in the construction sectors and has approved fast payments for public construction sites, covering up to 50% of the tender specification expenses, thus economically supporting companies and workers. Read more here (in Italian)
Contact: Olimpia Vaccarino Aureli
The city’s Deputy Mayor for Culture signed a petition addressed to the Italian Ministry of Culture to guarantee special support to the local creative sector. This includes measures such as: direct funding injections, specific allowances and benefits for workers from the cultural, entertainment, film, audiovisual and tourism sectors, welfare benefits for seasonal workers, insurance premiums for cultural enterprises and access to the 130 million euro emergency fund allocated by the national government. Read more here and here (in Italian)
Contact: Olimpia Vaccarino Aureli
The city has set up a new company named ‘Stolz auf Wien’ (Proud of Vienna) that will temporarily invest in local companies, which are at risk due to the crisis. The municipality, the Economic Chamber of Vienna, as well as private partners have contributed to collect 50 million euros that the company will be able to allocate. The company is due to start its work in May and the selection process for beneficiaries will be organised in an expert board. Read more here (in German)
Contact: Michaela Kauer or stay up to date at @Stadt_Wien
Cardiff based Life Sciences Hub Wales is working with businesses from a range of industries, including manufacturing, food and drink, IT and healthcare to explore how they can scale up production, repurpose existing products and deploy their expertise and capabilities to deal with the crisis. Read more here
Contact: Beverley Watson
To relieve the economic difficulties of various people and business, the Council of Valladolid is offering to help pay for water consumption, with an initial fund for €120,000. Read more here
Contact: Luisa Maria Herrero
To ensure that basic public services are functioning even in the crisis, Lille Metropole has initiated its Business Continuity Plan. Services in the areas of mobility, water, energy, waste collection, youth grants, housing grants and public support to companies are handled by 500 agents, out of a total of 3,000 employees, from 18 departments. Since 17 March, after a total lockdown in France was announced, they are working in three teams, with 200 agents permanently on the ground and two standby teams. The plan had been drafted after the swine flu pandemic in 2009. Updates are made available online twice a week (in French).
Contact: Christophe Bolot
The municipality of Vienna, alongside Vienna Chamber of Commerce, is setting aside €35 million to allow a much quicker municipal response to changing business situations than normal legislation would allow. The largest portion of these funds will be used to help prop up companies of 10 employees or less when they suffer a decline in turnover of more than 50%.
Read more here
Contact: Michaela Kauer or stay up to date at @Stadt_Wien
