Owners of shopping centers warn that a decline in attendance provoked by the coronavirus epidemic could result in a default of 1 trillion rubles to banks. The Russian Council of Shopping Centers (RSTC) appealed to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin with proposals for the necessary measures of state support for the retail real estate industry, RBC writes.
In an official letter, the RSTC cites statistics according to which about 30 million square meters are located in shopping centers in Russia m of rental space with at least 1 million people across the country. Most shopping centers are loaned because their construction was carried out with the involvement of bank financing. Due to the fact that in most cases the rent in the shopping center is calculated as a percentage of the turnover of enterprises located on its territory, a decrease in the attendance of shopping centers will provoke a drop in the tenants' revenue. According to RSTC, the default value on loans to shopping centers in the country may be about 1 trillion rubles.
The owners of the shopping centers propose to include their industry in the plan of supporting the economy in the context of the coronavirus epidemic, they propose to provide for a number of measures that should be in place by the end of this year, namely:
subsidizing interest rates on existing loans in the amount of at least 4%;
a three-month deferment of VAT and income tax with the possibility of extending the deferral until January 31, 2021;
temporary abolition of land tax and property tax;
temporary cancellation of rental payments for land in state ownership.
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