Businesses to start accepting Covid-19 government vouchers as from today

As from today, 7 June, the Covid-19 government vouchers can be spent by the public at retail and catering establishments as a way of helping the economy. Around 25,000 businesses will be eligible to receive the vouchers.

All Maltese residents and foreign national with residency status over the age of 16 are entitled to €100 worth of vouchers, €60 of which can be spent at restaurants, bars, accommodation or diving centres, while €40 can be spent at retail outlets, such as nail and hair salons as well as clothing stores, sports clubs and gyms, museums, arts and culture centres, band clubs, amongst others.

For this second round of stimulus vouchers, the government offered people the possibility to apply and digitally download their vouchers until 4 June instead of waiting to receive them by post. Those who did not download the vouchers digitally will automatically receive them by post.

The vouchers will remain valid until 15 September.

In the first 24 hours since the campaign was launched on Thursday, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri said that around 30,000 people downloaded the vouchers offered by the government.

This is the second such campaign the government introduced to help in the economic recovery. The vouchers will be coming at an investment of €50 million, in the hope that consumers will spend double that much as they had done last summer when the first campaign was launched.

Following the first round of vouchers, which consisted of €80 to be spent at restaurants or accommodation, and €20 to be spent at retail outlets, Minister Schembri had said that these vouchers were a great success for the economy as the initiative injected €37 million into economic sectors that had been hit hard by the pandemic.

Prime Minister Robert Abela had stated that the previous round of vouchers had seen people spend an extra euro for every €1 of voucher. This means that a €45 million initial investment, resulted in an injection of €90 million to the Maltese economy.

The government notes that the second round will exhibit the same effects – if not even more amplified – as the vaccine has given people higher confidence levels to go out.

In the first round of Covid-19 vouchers, which were being distributed during the summer period in 2020, the government issued 2.23 million vouchers, of which 1.29 million had been used by the beginning of September 2020. Statistics showed that the red vouchers were more popular.

Almost 83% of the red vouchers and 17% of the blue vouchers were used.

Elderly people in public and private care residences will not be receiving the second round of Covid-19 vouchers but will instead be receiving €100 directly in their bank account or as a cheque.