HCM City, Oct. 21 -- Banks in Ho Chi Minh City are focusing on measures to mitigate the difficulties faced by businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic and help them get back to health, a State Bank of Vietnam official has said.

Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the SBV's HCM City Branch, said the central bank is working with local authorities, the HCM City Union of Business Associations and other agencies to ease funding difficulties faced by businesses.

The SBV and the city authorities had organised a programme to connect banks with enterprises and business households to enable the latter to get loans at low interest rates, he said.

By the end of August outstanding loans under the programme had reached 289 trillion VND (12.45 billi...