Laos rolls out urgent measures to deal with COVID-19

Vientiane (VNA) – The Lao Government on April 2 issued a series of urgent measures to ease difficulties in production and business, as well as ensure social welfare amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decision No.31/PM said that the government allows the postponement of the payment of annual road tax to June 30, and the extension of the deadline for submitting financial reports and business performance in 2019 of enterprises from March 31 to April 30.

The Government exempts income tax for labourers whose income is below 5 million LAK (556 USD) from April to June, and corporate income tax payment for small enterprises with revenues from 50-400 million LAK from April to June.

It allows the Bank of Laos (BoL) to reduce its basic interest and ratio of minimum saving of private bank based on situation of each period, and to instruct private banks to implement policies on loans to cope with COVID19 impact such as deferring principal payment and interest, adjusting interest, providing new loans to businesses, debt restructure, and debt reclassification.

The decision also requires decreases in fuel prices based on the world ones, study on the possibility to reduce and defer payment for electricity and water supply bills for individual and businesses, study on the adjustment of insurance-related provisions for labourers who are laid off due to the pandemic, and the postponement of social insurance payment for affected businesses.

The Lao Government also decides to study and revise the GDP and important macro-economic objectives for 2020, speed up the collection of taxes in strongly-performing sectors, and intensify management over inflation and budget spending./.