General national economic measures

*small business relief or other financial support

*unemployment relief

*unemployment relief for freelance workers

* tax returns and or VAT returns suspended/delayed

* lower interest rates (general)

More info:

-The fiscal measures in 2020 added up to over NOK 139 billion (around €12,4bn), corresponding to around 4.6 percent of Mainland GDP.

-Guarantee schemes for SMEs and the Government Bond Fund brought around NOK 100 billion (around €8,9bn) in loans to businesses:

A state guarantee scheme for bank loans to enterprises, with a total guarantee volume of NOK 50 billion (around €4,45bn). The state guarantees 90 per cent of each bank loan.
A government bond fund with an investment budget of NOK 50 billion to increase liquidity and access to capital in the Norwegian bond market.
Increased borrowing limit in Innovation Norway’s loans scheme by NOK 1.6 billion (around €140m).

-Reduced key interest rates were introduced.

-A compensation scheme for otherwise sustainable businesses with at least 30 percent drop in revenue due to the virus outbreak was launched. The amount of support depended, among other things, on the size of revenue loss, the size of the enterprise’s unavoidable fixed costs and whether the enterprise has been ordered by the government to close.

-A reduction in employer-paid days from 15 to 2 for temporary lay-offs, from 10 to 3 for care-related leave and from 16 to 3 for corona-related sick leave was introduced.

-Loss-making companies were able to re-allocate up to NOK 30 million (around €2,6m) of the loss in 2020 against taxed surplus from 2018 and 2019 and refunding the tax value of this loss in 2020.

-Postponed deadlines for payment of value added tax, employer tax, advance tax for self-employed and companies, and several exercise taxes, including CO2.

-Reduction of the low VAT rate, which includes passenger transport, accommodation and parts of the cultural sector, from 12 to 8%.

-A compensation scheme of NOK 900 million for culture, sport and voluntary sectors. (more on this under “national measures specific to the music sector or culture in general”)

-Extension of the unemployment benefit scheme by granting benefit from the first day and increasing the daily allowance. Temporary laid off persons were guaranteed 100% compensation up to a salary of 599 148 NOK (around 53,000€). The schemes for temporary laid off and unemployed were also adjusted to include more people.

-A temporary scheme to secure self-employed and freelancers who are not included in the unemployment benefit scheme and to give self-employed and freelancers sickness benefit from day four.

-Temporary benefit for apprentices in case of unemployment or temporary layoff.

-Skills development measures to improve the skills of unemployed and laid-off persons.

More here: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/economic-measures-in-norway-in-response-to-covid-19/id2696858/

National measures specific to the music sector or to culture in general

The music sector can benefit from the above-mentioned general measures. For example, self-employees also had the right to unemployment funding during the crisis. For those who had no taxable income in previous years some of the constraints for getting social benefits will be lifted.

On top of this, specific measures are being introduced for the cultural sector:

-For the music/cultural sector a fund of 300 mill NOK (approx. €26m) was set up to ease the cancellation of public events (i.e festivals) in the period from 12th March through April 2020.

There is no measure to directly help record companies and music publishers.

More info: https://www.kulturradet.no/english/vis/-/corona-virus-covid-19

Health measures

Covid-19 measures and restrictions in the country can be found on the government's website.

Measures taken by local collecting society organisations

-The local producers collecting society is setting up digital marketing support for its members but it is not in place yet.

-Author society TONO launched a podcast (see here) and published a guide on live music streaming (see here)

Other music funds available

These funds are not specific to the crisis but are still available for the music sector:

From Arts Council Norway:

- FOND FOR LYD OG BILDE, for production of new music. https://www.kulturradet.no/fond-for-lyd-og-bilde

- For music in general from Arts Council Norway:

https://www.kulturradet.no/stotteordninger?categoryIds=11054

- PUBLSIERINGSTØTTE ORDNINGEN: about €2m for album support.

https://www.kulturradet.no/stotteordning/-/vis/publiseringsstotte-for-musikkinnspillinger

- FOND FOR UTØVENDE KUNSTNERE for production of new music:

https://www.ffuk.no/home.60435.en.html

Business and other expected losses

CD and vinyl sales are down. Some staff are being laid off, promotion/marketing of new music is low.

For more info:

FONO - Norwegian Association of Independents - https://fono.no - fono[a]fono.no

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