File Photo: A view of a gas production plant is seen in Groningen, Netherlands, February 24, 2015. (Reuters)
AMSTERDAM: The Dutch government on Friday said it will spend up to 3.1 billion euros ($3.02 billion) to support small businesses such as bakeries and greenhouses that have been hit hard by surging energy prices.
The plan unveiled by Economic Affairs Minister Micky Adriaansens targets more than 10,000 small firms for which energy costs make up more than 12% of sales, who will be compensated for gas and electricity prices above a threshold.
"These fundamentally sound companies usually want to go green but cannot avoid high energy use due to their type of industrial process or service," Adriaansens said in a statement.
The move was the latest in a raft of measures by The Hague to soften the impact of inflation on the Dutch economy, including an Oct. 4 decision to spend 23.5 billion euros to cap energy price for consumers.
That is in addition to an 18 billion euro package intended to compensate cost-of-living increases announced as part of the government's 2023 budget presented in September.
The Dutch government has aligned with Germany in opposing a EU-wide gas price cap.
There is uncertainty around the size of the current Dutch budget funding gap, with a September forecast by the Central Planning Bureau for a 3% deficit in 2023 outdated.
However the Dutch national debt is relatively low at 52.4% of GDP at the end of 2021.
