HCM City unveils 2nd COVID financial relief package

A free rice dispensing machine for poor people and those out of work is installed at a kindergarten in district 12’s Thanh Loc ward, which is under lockdown. (Photo laodong.vn)

HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City is set to offer a second financial relief package for businesses and workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to its Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Tourism, transport and small and medium-sized businesses, teachers, laid-off workers, and informal sector workers will be beneficiaries of payments that will be made between this month and December.

Le Minh Tan, director of the department, said it was working with authorities in the city’s 21 districts and Thu Duc city to compile a list of affected businesses and laid-off and informal sector workers who are eligible to receive the payments.

The department proposes to pay workers who were laid off for at least a month due to the pandemic monthly relief payments of 1.8 million VND (78 USD), Tan said.

The department allocated 611 billion VND (26.5 million USD) and 181 billion VND (7.85 million USD) for businesses and informal sector workers in the first relief package last year.

More than 20,500 lottery ticket sellers received more than 20 billion VND (869,400 USD).

Free food, essential goods

More than 600 workers placed under quarantine at the VINA Kitchen Ware JSC at the Tan Binh Industrial Park in HCM City on June 1 received essential goods and food for free from the Trade Union of the industrial parks and export processing zones. 

They are quarantined after coming into close contact with COVID-19 patients.

Huynh Van Tuan, Chairman of the Trade Union, said the workers got minimum wages and other support in quarantine.

Infected workers would get financial assistance of up to 3 million VND (130 USD) and others would get 1.5 million VND (65 USD), he said.

A free rice dispensing machine for poor people and those out of work has been installed at a kindergarten in district 12’s Thanh Loc ward, which is under lockdown.

Disadvantaged people could get free rice and essential goods from a store set up next to the machine, Nguyen Duc Vinh, Secretary of the Thanh Loc Ward Youth Union, said.

Some three to four tonnes of vegetables transported from Lam Dong province are delivered to people quarantined in the Thanh Loc ward every three or four days./.

VNA