Agricultural production and business units are in the 2% capital loans group

At the Conference concerning the implementation of Decree 31 on supporting businesses, cooperatives and business households with a 2% interest rate, the State Bank said that the beneficiaries of support for the purpose of borrowing capital belong to two groups.

The first group includes aviation, transportation and warehousing industries; tourism, accommodation and catering services; education; agriculture - forestry - fishery; manufacturing and processing industry; software publishing, computer programming and related activities, information service activities. The first group also mentions construction activities directly serving these economic sectors except construction activities for real estate business purposes.

The second group includes implementing projects to build social housing, housing for workers, and renovating old apartment buildings (the list of projects is compiled by the Ministry of Construction from the People's Committees of provinces and cities, and published in writing on the Ministry's web portal).

The interest rate support period is counted from the date of loan disbursement to the time when the customer pays off the principal or interest as agreed between the commercial bank and the customer, in accordance with the announced interest rate support funding source, but not exceeding December 31, 2023.

Interest-supported loans meeting normal loan conditions are acceptable to sign loan and disbursement agreements during the period from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023. Subjects are required to use the capital for the right purposes and have not yet received interest rate support from the state budget according to other policies.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong, Governor of the State Bank, commercial banks have completed registration for interest rate support plans. “The State Bank will summarize and propose to the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance to report to the competent authorities to assign additional public investment plans in 2022 (nearly VND 16,035 billion) and at the same time arrange public investment plan in 2023 (over VND 23,965 billion).”

The State Bank has also sent a notice of the interest rate support limit expected in 2022 to every commercial bank and requested the early implementation of the policy before organizing a conference of the whole banking industry to disseminate and gain a thorough understanding.

Addressing the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai said that the policy had basically been completed after four months of preparation. The Deputy Prime Minister also directed specific tasks for relevant ministries, departments and branches.

The State Bank of Vietnam is assigned to assume the prime responsibility for and coordinate with related ministries and branches to regularly monitor, supervise and evaluate the results of implementing interest rate support from the state budget and loan provision for enterprises, cooperatives and business households so effective solutions can be promptly proposed.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment is responsible for the beneficiaries and procedures, working in compliance with the law.

The Ministry of Finance shall ensure adequate and timely funding sources for interest rate support, and provide assistance to facilitate commercial banks in the process of making estimates and finalizing the interest rate support amounts.

The Ministry of Construction will urge localities to soon publicize the list of projects to build social housing, housing for workers, and renovate old apartment buildings that receive interest rate support.

The total support package for the Socio-Economic Development and Recovery Program under Decree 31 is VND 347 trillion. The 2% interest rate support package from the budget through commercial banks is estimated at VND 40 trillion. This package will be implemented in 2 years.

This is a large-scale policy of using state budgets implemented through the commercial banking system. As shared by Deputy Governor of the State Bank Dao Minh Tu, the beneficiaries of the support package have been carefully considered and approved by the National Assembly and the Government.

"The beneficiaries must ensure that all conditions are met. Only businesses with the ability to recover can get loans. However, during the implementation process, we will consider whether to loosen the conditions. The opinions will be aggregated for further assessment from the functional ministries, "said Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu.