Loans of pandemic-hit enterprises will enjoy an interest rate cut of 2 per cent under a Government support package to remove difficulties for the businesses.

The total preferential interest rate package is worth VND40 trillion, which comes from the State budget.

The proposal was drafted in the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s decree on interest rate support from the State budget for loans of enterprises, cooperatives and business households, which has been made public for comment.

According to the draft, beneficiaries of the preferential interest rate credit package are enterprises, cooperatives and business households in aviation, transportation, warehousing, tourism, accommodation-food services, education-training, agriculture, forestry, fishery, industry, manufacturing, processing, software, computer programming and IT industries.

Besides, businesses, whose loans are used for the purpose of building houses to sell or rent to workers, social houses, and renovating old apartment buildings on the list of projects announced by the Ministry of Construction, will also be beneficiaries.

Under the draft, loans of the borrowers, which have been disbursed from January 11, 2022 to December 31, 2023, will enjoy the interest rate cut. However, the borrowers will not be supported with the interest rate cut if their loans have overdue principal balances or late payment interest.

Dao Minh Tu, SBV’s deputy governor, said the Government assigned the SBV, in coordination with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning and Investment, to draft the decree according to Resolution No. 43/2022/QH15 on fiscal and monetary policies and Resolution No. /NQ-CP on the socio-economic recovery and development programme of the National Assembly.

According to the draft, commercial banks will get the interest rate aid package totalling VND40 trillion from the Ministry of Finance to provide the loans to the borrowers.

To prevent frauds, the draft stipulates if the borrowers use the loans for improper purposes according to the conclusions of the competent authorities, they will have to repay the interest rate cut amount for the State budget.

According to SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong, the banking industry cut lending interest rates three times totalling 1.8 percentage points in the past two years.

From July 15 to December 31, 2021, 16 commercial banks cut over VND21.24 trillion (US$936 million) of loan interest for COVID-19-hit customers. Of which, Agribank made the sharpest reduction with more than VND5.51 trillion for more than 3.5 million customers. It was followed by Vietcombank with VND4.63 trillion for 269,644 customers and BIDV with more than VND4.12 trillion for 452,746 customers.

Besides the Government’s preferential interest rate package, the banking industry will strive to continually reduce the lending rate by 0.5-1 percentage points in 2022 and 2023. — VNS