A number of key measures have been planned by Hanoi’s authorities to help the business community overcome the Covid-19 pandemic, including preferential loans, reductions of land rental and registration fees for newly-established enterprises.

Overview of a meeting between Hanoi's leaders and the business community on April 16.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, a growing number of enterprises in Hanoi have been forced to scale down or even suspend operations, with the consequences particularly severe for those operating in the fields of trade, transportation, hotel, education, catering and hospitality services, among others.

To help the business community cope with growing pressures from the pandemic, the city was quick in addressing businesses' concerns, which is in line with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s Directive No.11 on measures to mitigate the negative impacts on the economy.

Firstly, Hanoi’s leaders have prioritized administrative reforms and IT application, including the expansion of public online services at advanced stages for the benefits of the people and enterprises.

Secondly, the city is providing financial support for newly-established enterprises; simplifying procedures for people claiming unemployment benefits; delaying payment of pension and death gratuity funds for firms affected by the pandemic.

Additionally, Hanoi has instructed commercial banks to continue organizing bank-business matching events with outstanding loans of VND546 trillion (US$23.37 billion) involved while providing supporting programs for customers in the forms of restructuring of debt payment, waiving and reducing of interest rates, among others.

Credit institutions are encouraged to offer loans with preferential interest rates for enterprises to resume activities.

So far, Hanoi has approved the development planning for industrial parks, targeting to have 159 parks with a combined area of 3,204.31 hectares by 2030. Over 70 industrial parks are operational at present with 3,600 enterprises.

Hanoi is calling for investment to construct an addition of 68 industrial parks worth VND19.6 trillion (US$840 million), so that more space is provided for enterprises in the coming time.

Thirdly, incentive policies are in place to support enterprises in R&D activities, including financial support for development and commercialization of intellectual products.

In the immediate future, Hanoi will speed up development of sectors with high growth potential in the current crisis such as agriculture and production of medical equipment, e-commerce, e-payment, and online learning, among others.

To address social security, Hanoi has allocated VND1.02 trillion (US$43.4 million) in trust fund via the Vietnam Bank of Social Policies so that the bank can provide preferential loans to the poor and social beneficiaries.

To date, Hanoi has a total of 285,360 operational enterprises, of which small- and medium-sized ones account for 97%. In the January-March period, the number of enterprises suspending operations surged 36% year-on-year to 4,240 while over 13,215 people filed unemployment insurance claim, up 22.2% year-on-year.