Slovak president okays zero VAT on respirators

Slovakia is introducing zero VAT on personal respiratory protection equipment and FFP2 and FFP3 respirators, as Slovak President Zuzana Caputova signed into law a bill on extraordinary financial measures on Thursday, TASR learnt from President's spokesperson Martin Strizinec on the same day. "The purpose of the legislative amendment is to provide greater access in terms of prices to the efficient protection against COVID-19 for the public, seeing as the application of zero VAT rate is expected to reduce the price for the end consumer," reads the bill, drafted by the Finance Ministry. The new measure will stay in effect until April 30, 2021.