A string of fresh policies on subsidies for employees and employers affected by COVID-19, assistance for SMEs, tuition fee cuts for students shall come into effect from October 2021.

Support for employees and employers

Resolution 116/NQ-CP 2021, dated September 24 details a support policy for employees, employers affected by COVID-19 from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

Under Resolution No. 03/2021/UBTVQH15, about VND 30 trillion (US$ 1.31 billion) from the fund will be used to support laborers who are covered by unemployment insurance from September 30, 2021, excluding employees in State agencies, socio-political organizations, people’s armed forces and public non-business agencies who are paid by the State budget.

Laborers who have stopped paying unemployment insurance due to the termination of their labor contracts or working contracts between January 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021, and have unemployment insurance premium payment period reserved in accordance with the employment law, are also eligible for the support, excluding retirees who receive monthly pensions.

The support will be delivered from October 1 and scheduled to complete on December 31 at the latest.

Specifically, different levels of assistance from VND 1.8 million (US$ 79) to VND 3.3 million (US$ 144.8) will be given to each laborer depending on the time they has paid unemployment premium.

Supportive policies for SMEs

Decree No. 80/2021/ND-CP, dated August 26, 2021 of the Government detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Support for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises shall come into effect from October 15.

According to the Decree, a SME shall be provided with the following support on technologies: support up to 50% of the value of the appropriate technology transfer consultancy contract, support up to 50% of the value of the contract for consulting digital transformation solutions for enterprises in terms of business, administration, production and technology processes and transformation of business model.

A SME shall be provided with support to cover 100% of total expenses of a training course on business startup and up to 70% of total expenses of a training course on corporate governance for SMEs; be exempted from fees for accessing and attending online lectures available on the online training systems of the Ministry of Planning and Investment and provincial-level People’s Committees.

Tuition fee exemption

Decree 81/2021/ND-CP on the policy of exemption and reduction of university fees, support for study expenses shall take effect from October 15.

Article 15 of Decree 81 supplements more subjects of tuition fee exemption including orphaned students of intermediate and college programs, secondary-school students in difficulty-hit hamlets, and learners of particular expertise professions.

Especially, from mid-October, tuition fee subsidy will be increased by VND 50,000 (over US$ 2) to VND 150,000 (US$ 6.5).

Five groups of loans of a credit institution or foreign bank branch

Circular No. 11/2021/TT-NHNN dated July 30, 2021 of the State Bank of Viet Nam providing the classification of assets, risk provisioning levels and methods and use of provisions for handling risks in operations of credit institutions and foreign bank branches comes into effect from October 1.

Accordingly, a credit institution or foreign bank branch shall classify loans into the following 5 groups: Group 1 - Pass; Group 2 - Special mention; Group 3 - Sub-standard; Group 4 - Doubtful; Group 5 - Potential loss.

The classification of loans must fully satisfy the following requirements: having an internal credit-rating system suitable to its business operations, customers and types of risk of loans, and having tested this system for at least 01 year; having a risk provisioning policy.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Trade