BERLIN, April 8 (Xinhua) -- TUI, Europe's largest tourism company headquartered in Hannover, Germany, would receive a governmental credit of 1.8 billion euros (2.0 billion U.S. dollars) to cope with the effects of the coronavirus crisis which caused worldwide travel restrictions, the tourism group announced on Wednesday.

"We must bridge this unprecedented global situation. The German government has acted quickly to support jobs and companies during these exceptional times," said TUI CEO Fritz Joussen.

The German development bank (KfW) and TUI had signed the contract for a bridging loan which had been committed by the German government at the end of March as part of the German COVID-19 economic aid program.

TUI had decided to apply for the KfW loan "to cushion the unprecedented effects of the pandemic" until normal business operations could be resumed. TUI's banking consortium accepted the KfW loan into its existing credit line.

A few weeks ago, Joussen estimated the company's liquidity at 1.4 billion euros. Together with the state loan, this would put TUI's financial resources and credit lines to around 3.1 billion euros.

TUI was now preparing "intensively" for the time after the coronavirus crisis. Joussen was convinced that people would continue to travel and still wanted to get to know other countries and cultures in the future. (1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollars) Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)