HCM City (VNA)꧑ – Domestic investors will receive no-interest loans of 100 billion VND (4.5 million USD) and less under a HCM City People's Committee's investment stimulus programme.

Eligible investment projects must be in sectors of high technology, industry, industrial support, trade, agricultural production, healthcare, education and training, culture and sports, infrastructure and environment. The investment projects will be supported 50-100 percent of loan interest for a period of up to seven years. Investment projects that borrow loans worth more than 100 billion VND or have a borrowing period of more than seven years will be decided case by case by the municipal People's Committee. The programme aims to encourage companies and co-operatives to upgrade their production facilities, replace import products and produce value-added products. It also encourages the development of private investment in industrial support sectors, healthcare, education and training, culture and sports. Support measures The People's Committee has carried out several measures to enhance production, including a plan to build three- to eight-floor factory buildings in industrial parks and export processing zones in the 2015-18 period. A number of buildings have been built in Dong Nam and Hiep Phuoc industrial parks, Linh Trung and Tan Thuan export processing zones. The buildings, which have a floor area of 10,000-40,000 sq.m each, house factories covering 100 – 3,000 sq.m each. The buildings help the city use land with optimal effectiveness, and meet the diverse demand of investors, according to the People's Committee. Companies that invest in such buildings have received preferential loans for the cost of new buildings and other support facilities. Over the past three years, the city's bank-enterprise linkage programme has provided soft loans worth more than 120 trillion VND (5.4 billion USD) to thousands of enterprises. With the implementation of several measures, the city's industrial production scale has expanded in recent years, according to the city's Department of Industry and Trade. The city's industry has also increased the proportion of processing and manufacturing and reduced the proportion of mining, said the department. Huynh Van Minh, Chairman of the HCM City Enterprise Association, was quoted as saying in Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) newspaper that the People's Committee had issued policies that provide financial support for enterprises in the initial stage of reform. Thanks to the support, enterprises had favourable conditions for research, and produced new products or improved technologies, he said. But in the long term, he said the city should strengthen measures to support goods consumption and develop distribution channels. The city should set up a market that provides information for enterprises, helping them make decisions about production, he added. The city's investment stimulus scheme has been implemented since 2000, providing soft loans for about 880 projects which have investment capital 35-80 billion VND each, according to the city's Department of Planning and Investment.-VNA