G7 taxi drivers are among those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic's impact. (Photo: dantri.com.vn)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – The Ministry of Labour, War Valids and Social Affairs(MoLISA) has proposed a 18.6 trillion VND (798 million USD) package for thoseaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic, helping them promote production and maintainemployment.
The proposal has been sent to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Thebeneficiaries are small and medium enterprises, cooperatives, businesshouseholds in which small and micro enterprises (under ten employees) are givenpriority, and workers in rural areas. Production and business units can borrowup to 2 billion VND, while employees are entitled to 100 million VND.
The interest rate support period is 12 months, applied from September 1, 2020to September 1, 2021. The loan interest rate is 3.96 percent per year (equal to50 percent of the interest rate for the near poor). Estimated cost is about 15trillion VND.
The ministry also recommended a policy supporting unemployed workers living indifficult circumstances. Beneficiaries of this policy are workers who arerenting houses or raising children under six years old. They lost jobs or havehad labour contracts suspended.
The three-month support amount is 1 million VND per person (household)per month and 1 million VND for those raising children under six. Thiswill be applied from September 2020 to December 2020. Estimated cost is about 3.6trillion VND.
If it is approved by the Government, it will be the second social securitysupport package to those affected after the country’s economy was hit by thecoronavirus outbreak early this year. The first package worth 62 trillion VND,launched in April, is being disbursed with zero-interest loans.
Insiders said that it is necessary to loosen conditions to raise thenumber of beneficiaries. With the current 62 trillion VND support package, thedisbursement is difficult for beneficiary groups to access.
Vo Tri Thanh, a senior economist at the Central Institute for EconomicManagement (CIEM) and a member of the National Financial and Monetary PolicyAdvisory Council, told local media that more than 17 trillion VND of the 62trillion VND package disbursed was a low figure.
“I think there is a situation of passing the buck and being afraid ofresponsibility, delaying the disbursement,” Thanh said.
General Director of G7 Taxi Management Joint Stock Company Nguyen Anh Quan saidhis company has more than 1,000 drivers who have completed procedures forfinancial support in accordance with the Prime Minister’s Decision No 15on supporting those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, however, no cases havebeen resolved yet.
Quan said the difficulty is that the support policies are dedicated toemployees whose working contracts have been postponed, in which employeeshave taken time off for more than a month from April 1, 2020 toJune 30, 2020. However, G7 drivers only took 22 consecutive days off, then wentback to work on alternate days.
“The company’s production and business efficiency have been severely affected,reducing drivers’ income. However, the number of days off is not enoughfor a consecutive month, so these workers are not eligible for support,” Quansaid, “As for the second support package, I don't expect much.”
Economist Le Dang Doanh said the second social security support package needsto have a broader coverage, comprehensively covering all groups of affectedpeople because the pandemic has negatively impacted almost all industries andfields. Meanwhile, it is necessary to loosen conditions for beneficiaries.
“As many businesses have not been able to access the first support package,ministries and agencies need to reconsider the reason; whether the policy isreally effective or not; if it need to be adjusted and supplemented. The mostimportant thing is that the new policies must be more open, practical andmeaningful,” Doanh told nguoiduatin.vn.
Nguyen Khac Quoc Bao, head of the Finance Faculty under the University ofEconomics Ho Chí Minh City said that most of the packages issued wereineffective or very unclear.
Bao said businesses can be divided into two types – one is State-ownedeconomic groups and the other is the private sector. In which, State-ownedgroups have strong financial potential in multiple fields, so they arestrong enough to cope with the pandemic.
The most worrying is small and medium enterprises. Most of them do not havefinancial resources, so they are vulnerable when consumption and the economy’sdemand decreases. Therefore, they need to be given priority support andprotection. “Besides the support from the State, they must also try themselves.”
Vietnam’s post-pandemic policy will be very different from other countries becausewe had spent a large amount of money compared to the size of the budget and theeconomy to control and stamp out the pandemic. Successful control over thepandemic will create favourable conditions to restore and reactivate theeconomy,” Bao said.
“But on the contrary, it also puts enormous pressure on balancing budgets andsecuring other fiscal spending tasks. This is the reason why it is necessary toclassify the beneficiary groups, in which identifying who is prioritised, whicheconomic sectors and which enterprises need support first,” he added.
According to report by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, theCOVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the economy, seriously affectingalmost all sectors and socio-economic fields. About 17.6 million people havehad their income reduced, leading to difficulties in stimulating domesticconsumption.
In the first seven months ofthis year, the unemployment rate increased at the highest rate in the past 10years, of which unemployment in the working group aged 15-54 accounted for30.7 percent of the total./.
VNA
