Second relief package proposed for Covid-19-hit entities

The package will be offered to small and medium enterprises, cooperatives, household businesses, especially small and micro enterprises with fewer than 10 employees, to develop their production and business as well as laborers in rural areas to resume, maintain and expand their work, Tuoi Tre Online newspaper reported.

Loans with an annual preferential interest rate of 3.96%, equivalent to half of the lending rate for near-poor households, may be offered. Each enterprise can borrow a maximum of VND2 trillion and each laborer, VND100 million.

The preferential interest rate was proposed to be applied for new loans from September 1, 2020, to September 1, 2021, worth VND15 trillion in total.

The ministry has also proposed that laborers who have to pay home rents or have children younger than six years of age and have lost their jobs and taken unpaid leave should be provided with VND1 million each per month for three months and VND1 million per child. The amount needed is VND3.6 trillion.

As for the first relief package valued at VND62 trillion, by the end of July, localities had approved lists of some 16 million people eligible for the financial support of VND17.5 trillion, according to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs’ document sent to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The State Treasury of Vietnam has disbursed some VND12 trillion for nearly 12 million people and 13,000 household businesses.

According to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, localities have completed the provision of money to people who had contributed to the country's revolution in the past and poor and near-poor households.

On July 31, the ministry also proposed that the prime minister amend and supplement several articles of Decision 15 with regard to the support for laborers and enterprises so as to add more beneficiaries to the decision.