“SBP has announced excellent schemes to provide concessional financing to businesses and SMEs to support their employees during the lockdown,” said Hammad in a tweet post. The statement comes after the central bank on Friday, announced the Refinance Scheme for Payment of Wages and Salaries to the Workers and Employees of Business Concerns to support the employment of workers in the face of economic challenges posed by the spread of COVID-19. The core objective of this temporary refinance scheme is to incentivize businesses to not lay off their workers during COVID-19 Pandemic. The federal minister added: “The government will be announcing further schemes in the near future to allow businesses and SMEs to revive and get back on their feet.” Earlier, the former minister for economic affairs had stated that the government was finalizing an approximately $600 million emergency package with multilateral for dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. It includes reallocations and fresh financing.