Oct. 14 – The State Bank of Vietnam announced that it would provide an interest-rate subsidy of as high as 4 percentage points for medium- and long- term loans  granted from April 1 until the end of the year.

The government wants to boost the economy by helping companies and individuals to obtain loans and it said the support will be offered through December 2011 although it did not specify how much would money would be budgeted for the program.

In January, the government already started offering VND17 trillion of loan subsidies to allow banks to offer preferential interest rates says Thanh Nien News. The Ministry of Finance forecasts that the economy will grow next year after avoiding sliding into recession this year.