The Government has officially issued Decree 31/2022/ND-CP on interest rate support from the State budget for loans of enterprises, co-operatives and business households.

This decree provides interest rate support for loans in Vietnamese dong arising from lending activities of commercial banks to customers that are enterprises, co-operatives and business households according to Resolution 43/2022/QH15 dated January 11 of the National Assembly and Resolution 11/NQ-CP dated January 30 of the Government.

The State budget shall fully and promptly allocate funds for interest rate support for commercial banks to provide interest rate support to customers. Commercial banks provide interest rate support to ensure compliance with regulations, creating favourable conditions for customers.

The interest rate support applies to interest payment obligations at interest payment terms that arise during the period from the effective date of this decree to December 31 next year.

Commercial banks will stop supporting interest rates after December 31 next year or when the funding source runs out, whichever comes first.

The loan with interest rate support is a loan in Vietnamese dong, with loan agreement signed and disbursed in the period from January 1 this year to December 31 next year, using the capital for the right purpose under the provisions of Clause 2, Article 2 of this decree and have not yet received interest rate support from the State budget according to other policies.

The interest rate support period is from the date of loan disbursement to the time when the customer pays off the loan principal and/or interest as agreed between the commercial banks and the customers, in line with the funding source for interest support rates announced, but not exceeding December 31 next year.

The support interest rate for customers is 2 per cent per year, calculated on the loan balance.

Nguyen Phuoc Hung, Vice Chairman of HCM City Business Association, said that many businesses in the area were looking forward to the interest rate support package.

The two per cent per year interest rate support programme for a number of businesses, co-operatives and business households was part of the economic recovery master programme in 2022-2023, he said.

It took a long time from discussion to decision. Now that the decision had been issued, businesses were looking forward to deploying it soon so that they could have more financial resources, he added. — VNS