Recently, the Government of Vietnam has promulgated Resolution 105/NQ-CP on assistance for enterprises, cooperatives and households businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this Resolution is to focus on the restoration and development of operation of enterprises, cooperatives and household businesses in association with safety and prevention against Covid-19; Promptly resolve the difficulties and bottlenecks that obstruct production and business operation; minimize the number of enterprises, cooperatives and household businesses that have to be suspended, dissolved or go bankrupt because of Covid-19.
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To achieve that target, the Vietnamese Government decided to implement 4 groups of solutions and basic tasks accompanied by many policies to support enterprises, cooperatives and household businesses amid the Covid-19 epidemic, including:
1. Designate the Ministry of Health take charge and cooperate with other Ministries, central authorities, provincial governments and units to continue reasonable and effective distribution of Covid-19 vaccines under the Government’s Resolution; expand the priority groups for vaccination, including employees of enterprises, cooperatives and household businesses in key economic regions, economic zones, hi-tech zones, industrial zones, industrial complexes, agriculture and aquaculture production and processing areas, enterprises in the supply chains with orders for production, export, import, labor-intensive enterprises; enterprises, cooperatives and household businesses in the field of transport, seaports; people working in national and provincial key constructions; workers in high-risk fields. Keep expanding priority groups for vaccination to satisfy requirements for business operations in other necessary fields.
In addition, the Ministry of Health of Vietnam have to Review, amend regulations on health insurance towards permitting health insurance to cover the costs of charged remote medical examination and treatment; and soon promulgate documents instructing enterprises, cooperatives and household businesses to buy test kits, perform self-testing and self-recognition of test results.
Study mechanism, instruct, enable, encourage enterprises to import vaccines; the State shall carry out quality inspection, licensing, preservation and organization of free vaccination for the people; purchase medical equipment for Covid-19 prevention and control, Covid-19 medicines; manufacture domestic Covid-19 vaccines and medications.
2. The Ministry of Labor, War Invalid and Social Affairs of Vietnam shall take charge and cooperate with other Ministries and authorities in proposing to competent authority and Standing committee of the National Assembly promulgation of policies on reduction of social insurance premiums or assistance from short-term surplus of the social insurance fund in order to provide timely assistance for workers, enterprises, cooperatives, household businesses and other employers
Instruct Vietnam Social Security to, in September 2021; propose exemption of fines for late payment of social insurance premiums that are due in 2020 and 2021.
Instruct localities to flexibly and relax a number of regulations and conditions on the grant, extension and certification of work permits for foreign workers working in Vietnam under the new context but must be absolutely safe in terms against COVID-19
3 . The Ministry of Transport of Vietnam shall take charge and cooperate with relevant ministries and agencies in making decisions or requesting competent authorities to make decisions on prices for air transport services in order to assist airliners affected by negative impacts of Covid-19. Requiring sea transport enterprises to publish their prices; strengthen state management of sea transport enterprises to prevent them from taking advantage of Covid-19 situation to unreasonably their service prices and thus increase the burdens to enterprises, cooperatives and household businesses;
4 . The Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam shall take charge and cooperate with the Ministry of Finance and relevant agencies to urgently organise the implementation of Resolution 97/NQ-CP dated August 28, 2021 of the Government on the plan to support electricity bill reduction, electricity discount (Stage 5) for electricity customers.
5 . The Ministry of Finance of Vietnam promptly implements policies on relaxation and reduction of taxes, fees, charges and land rents after being promulgated by competent authorities; consider, study and submit to the Government and the Prime Minister to continue to defer the deadline for paying excise tax on domestically manufactured and assembled automobiles until the end of 2021; study and assess the impact to consider reducing the registration fee for domestically manufactured and assembled cars over time in line with the COVID-19 epidemic situation.
6. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam shall take charge and cooperate with the Ministry of Justice and relevant ministries and agencies promptly allowing travel service enterprises to receive an 80% reduction in deposit for travel service business until the end of 2023, reduce the time to settle the deposit of the travel service business from 60 days to 30 days.
7 . The State Bank of Vietnam encourages credit institutions to reduce costs to continue reducing lending interest rates for existing and new loans to support production and business. Promptly research to amend to policies and regulations on debt rescheduling, fee waiver and reduction, and maintain the same debt category for borrowers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the direction of expanding the target audience. The scope and time of the policy shall be applied to suit the actual development of the epidemic.
8 . The Vietnam General Confederation of Labor considers exempting trade union fees as well as reducing union fees in 2021 - 2022, with practical solutions to support employees.
Resolution 105/NQ-CP of Vietnam takes effect from September 9, 2021.
