ATHENS, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Greece's government unveiled on Monday an additional package of measures, the 4th this month, to cushion the economic blow of the coronavirus epidemic.

During a press briefing, Greek Finance Minister Christos Staikouras announced the supplementary policies supporting businesses and employees in the coming weeks.

The new package includes an expansion of emergency support of 800 euros (880 U.S. dollars) apiece in April to 1.7 million employees, or 81 percent of the total workforce, in the private sector.

The government covers all social insurance contributions for 45 days, along with a four-month suspension of all tax payments, Greek national news agency AMNA noted.

In addition, more enterprises will be offered VAT payment suspensions and other tax payment suspensions on the condition that they maintain all existing job positions. The measure now concerns 800,000 enterprises or about eight out of ten businesses in Greece.

With the new package, the economic measures to counter the effects of the crisis reached 6.8 billion euros so far, or 3.5 percent of GDP, Staikouras noted.

He reiterated that the damage to the Greek economy would be significant but temporary.

"We will overcome the crisis united, with the cost fairly distributed within society, and with solidarity. Greek society must emerge again on its feet after this big test with social cohesion," the minister said.

Since early March, when the number of confirmed infections across Greece started to increase, the government has introduced confinement measures and pledged sets of relief measures for citizens.

According to the latest count announced on Monday, Greece has 1,212 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 43 deaths. (1 euro = 1.1 U.S. dollars) Enditem

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