translated from Spanish: Ministers of Economy and Culture announce first call for tourism subsidies and creative industry

The Minister of Economy, Development and Tourism, Lucas Palacios, together with the Minister of Cultures, Arts and Heritage, Consuelo Valdés, the Undersecretary of Tourism, José Luis Uriarte, the director of Sernatur, Andrea Wolleter and the Executive Vice President of Corfo, Pablo Terrazas, released a new plan to support the tourism sector and the creative industry. The plan includes 4 axes of work, including business subsidies, credit facilities through the FOGAPE Reactiva program, flexibilities in the Employment Protection Act and special programs in partnership with Banco Estado.Así, during the months of February and March, the Ministry of economy will make the first call to competition to access these subsidies totaling $55 billion. At this stage, $50 billion will go to the tourism sector and $5 billion to the culture and arts sector, benefiting more than 20,000 companies nationwide.” This is an unreleased program because of its size and scope. This is the first time that so many resources have been allocated to specific sectors that are extraordinarily hit, because this is the year of economic recovery. The first resources will be delivered during the first half of the year, which is going to be a very difficult semester, and as early as the second trimester, we will see a strong economic recovery as a result of the vaccination process,” said Economy Minister Lucas Palacios.Meanwhile, Minister Consuelo Valdés explained that “this is an important signal for the revival of the cultural sector , where these new resources from the Ministry of economy will serve to support companies related to the cultural sector.” On budget, this year Corfo and Sercotec’s programs will make $180 billion available to support the country’s micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, reflecting a considerable increase over the budget of previous years, which on average earmarked $85 billion to this end. Of this total, the first $55 billion will go to the tourism sector and the creative industry, both heavily hit by the pandemic. Following the announcement, the Undersecretary of Tourism, José Luis Uriarte, commented that “many communes are quarantined or step 2 and could not work, so they did not have the possibility to obtain resources, so through Corfo, we are making available only to the tourism sector resources that will benefit more than 20 thousand companies in the sector. They are non-refundable subsidies, a direct transfer of resources and that will finance up to 70% of the business plans of tourism companies, both in working capital and fixed asset”. For his part, the Vice-President of Corfo, Pablo Terrazas, noted that “the important thing is that they are subsidies that point precisely to the economic revival therefore, behind each project, of each subsidy, there is an initiative, an idea that will generate employment what we are looking for as a government is precisely to recover the jobs lost during the pandemic”. In addition, Sernatur director Andrea Wolleter said that “we are fully aware of the impact the crisis has had on the tourism industry, last year we had a 75% drop in receptive tourism and international tourism also had very significant declines. Today we have 120 thousand people associated with tourism who are suspended from employment, so the announcements are very important in order to achieve the recovery and reactivation of the tourism sector”. Nominations for the tourism sector begin this week, and for the case of the culture and arts sector start during the next week, both through a one-stop shop that will be available on the Corfo website: www.corfo.cl

Original source in Spanish