Central China's Hubei province, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, issued a series of fiscal and taxation polices on Feb 6, aiming squarely at helping the full-scale battle currently taking place against the epidemic, local officials said.

They said the raft of policies aim to ensure the supply of materials for epidemic prevention and control, encourage companies to support epidemic prevention and control, support front-line medics, and ensure the supply of daily necessities for people.

One document underscored the province's fiscal and taxation support polices for prevention and control of the virus. Under it, Hubei is requiring government departments to ensure the implementation of preferential policies for value-added tax, or VAT.

The document outlines inclusive policies for small and micro enterprises, as well as the implementation of VAT reduction policies in the fields of medicine, medical treatment, medical materials, vegetables and other agricultural products and transportation and logistics.

The newly issued policy makes clear that businesses that donate and assist Hubei’s epidemic prevention and control will also receive tax support.

In particular, the document zeroes in on all medical and epidemic prevention workers who take part in the frontline of epidemic prevention and control.

The policy makes them exempt from individual income tax on special temporary work subsidies for epidemic prevention and control, obtained in accordance with the standards set by the central and local governments.

The document proposes that Hubei increase the funds and expand reserves of original medical reserve funds. At the same time it allocates funds for pharmaceutical materials and encourages all pharma materials manufacturers in the province to organize production, storage and deployment.

The document also specifies that subsidies shall be given for the overtime wages of employees of companies producing the prevention and control medical materials.

Elsewhere, subsidies shall be given to companies for expenses in helping workers to return to their posts, physical examinations of staff and other expenses. In addition, the tolls on vehicles for emergency prevention and control materials in the province shall be reduced or exempted.

Officials said it was proposed that existing special funds for agriculture-related finance should be coordinated, to support companies and vegetable farmers to increase production and supply of vegetables.

Under the policies, municipal and county-level governments are set to provide subsidies to vegetable production businesses, cooperatives and farmers through special funds, or subsidized loans with discounted interest.

The document clearly states that Hubei will give financial subsidies to the circulation costs of enterprises, to the enterprises engaged in vegetable distribution on the basis of the amount of its distribution, and to the large supermarkets engaged in sales and supply.

During the epidemic period -- according to the registration and inspection of stall records provided by the market founders -- the commercial department will regularly allocate rent subsidies to market founders.

In addition, in order to encourage the promotion of a contactless catering distribution business model, Hubei will implement fast track channels for the approval of new and reconstructed contactless catering distribution facilities and subsidize the distribution costs of contactless delivery orders.

At the same time, Hubei is set to encourage major ordering platforms to introduce preferential policies to promote the contactless delivery mode to consumers.