Medium- and long-term business loans will now be eligible for the Government’s subsidised-interest loan programme, according to a new State Bank of Vietnam circular.

Under Circular No 21/2009/TT-NHNN, which amended Circular No 05/2009/TT-NHNN, loans of terms in excess of 12 months and disbursed between April 1 and December 31,2009, would be eligible for the interest subsidy.

Since January, about 17 trillion VND (952 million USD) has been spent as part of the Government stimulus package to subsidise the interest commercial banks collect on short-term loans, encouraging banks to lend and companies to borrow at preferential interest rates to finance production.

According to a State Bank report, commercial banks and other financial institutions have since lent nearly 409.4 trillion VND (22.9 billion USD) under the programme.

Private enterprises have borrowed 273.2 trillion VND (15.3 billion USD) under the programme, State-own enterprises 68.1 trillion VND (3.8 billion USD) and households 68 trillion VND (3.8 billion USD).

Most of the loans have been made by State-owned commercial banks and central credit unions, together lending 279 trillion VND (15.6 billion USD), while private commercial banks have lent 102.8 trillion VND (5.7 billion USD) and foreign-invested or joint venture banks 20.6 trillion VND (1.2 billion USD)./.