The Danish Parliament has agreed to improve and extend financial relief packages to more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), says a press release from the Ministry of Finance on Saturday.

"This is a package of initiatives in the form of grants, guarantees, and liquidity for a total of about 100 billion Danish kroner (14.6 billion U.S. dollars), which will help keep the hand under even more jobs," said Minister of Finance Nicolai Wammen to Denmark's TV 2 on Saturday.

The expanded aid package is a follow-up to the initiative agreed on March 18 that was adopted to address the financial consequences of the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The relief package scheduled to end on June 9 will now carry on until July 8 while it will be extended to smaller entrepreneurial and growth companies that "either cannot get paid money, need a longer maturity, or have the so-called compensation rate set up" due to the lock-down of society.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Denmark has risen to 7,242, while the death toll is 346, according to fresh figures from the Danish Statens Serum Institut on Saturday.

The institute is a Danish sector research institute located on the island of Amager in Copenhagen. Its purpose is to combat and prevent infectious diseases, congenital disorders, and threats from weapons of mass destruction.