Bank offers soft loans to businesses for paying COVID-19-impacted workers

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

The Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) has allocated 31.6 billion VND (1.36 million USD) to 207 enterprises to pay wages for 8,529 labourers who lost jobs due to impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the bank, it has extended payment dates and adjusted the lending terms for 242,700 existing customers, while giving more loans to 122,900 others with total capital of over 3.11 trillion VND.

At the same time, it has provided loans for nearly 2 million new customers with a total capital of over 71.58 trillion VND.

In 2020, amid the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank offered support to affected businesses and people while ensuring its continuous operations.

The VBSP coordinated with other relevant agencies to build and submit resolutions and decisions to the Government and Prime Minister on the implementation of support policies to those who face difficulties due to COVID-19. The documents have served as important foundations for the lending to employers with loans to pay wage for affected labourers.

Accordingly, the eligible employers are those whose employees are joining compulsory social insurance and had to stop their jobs at least one month continuously between April to the end of December 2020, while suffering from a 20 percent year-on-year drop in their revenue in the first quarter of 2020, and having no bad debts.

They will get loans with the value equivalent to a half of the total wage they have to pay to their employees on the basis of the minimum regional wage, with zero percent interest rate in 12 months.

The capital of the scheme will be disbursed until January 31, 2021, according to the bank./.