According to a press release issued on Feb 19, Tianjin will provide small and medium-sized enterprises who rent state-owned commercial property with a three month rent exemption, as well as halving their rent for a further quarter. 

For those SMEs that rent business premises from non-state-owned landlords, the landlords shall be encouraged to reduce the rent, said Lian Dongqing, deputy director of Tianjin Finance Bureau.

Due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, SMEs in China are under tremendous pressure. The measure is part of local government efforts to cushion the impact of COVID-19.

The Tianjin Finance Bureau issued a detailed and concrete rule on Feb 13 for guiding the timely and smooth implementation of this policy.

The rule clearly defines the scope, time, eligible targets, approval procedures, amounts of rent concessions and other items.

The policy of rent concessions involves 37 enterprises managed by Tianjin State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) and six enterprises entrusted by the city to the SASAC.

According to incomplete statistics, the area of real estate rented out by those enterprises each year exceeds 10 million square meters and the annual rental income is about 2 billion yuan or more. Preliminary estimations indicate that the amount of rent concessions on offer is valued at more than 500 million yuan.