Vietnam grants loans with preferential interest rate to riot-hit firms

A credit package worth 1 trillion VND ($47 million) will be granted with preferential interest rate to riot-hit companies in Vietnam's southern Binh Duong province to help them restore production, local press reported Thursday.

Thirty-seven companies in Binh Duong province which were hit by the mid-May riots can borrow loans from the package for three years with an interest rate of 3.5 percent per year, while the rest 3.5 percent will be paid from the province's budget, Liberated Saigon daily quoted an announcement of Binh Duong People ' s Committee on Thursday as saying.

The granted loan will be made on the level of damages hit by the company and its requirement of capital for production, however, the total sum will not be more than 50 billion VND ($2.3 million) per company. The Vietnam Bank for Investment and Development's Binh Duong Province Branch will be in charge of processing the loans.

The loans should be invested in fixed assets, including workshops, machinery, equipment and other means of production, said the announcement.

In recent months, Binh Duong province's authorities have cooperated with relevant agencies of tax, customs, construction, credit, insurance and employment in supporting riot-hit companies, including pausing the collection of fees for administrative procedures.

In mid-May, a series of riots hit foreign companies in southern and central Vietnam, leaving four Chinese nationals brutally killed, around 20 foreign factories burned down and some 1,100 foreign companies affected.