Hanoi (VNA) - VietABank has offered a preferentialloan totalling 500 billion VND (22 million USD) to support businesses inhi-tech agriculture.

Companies, households and agricultural production units could begiven loans to invest in agricultural machines and equipment, expand productionscale, buy fertilisers or spend on irrigation, harvesting and plant protectionproducts.

Preferential credit will be applied in the 2017-20 period.

VietABank has also offered a 1.5 trillion VND preferential loanto startups including firms in hi-tech agriculture.

With the two loan packages of 2 trillion VND, the bank isexpected to share businesses’ difficulties and support the Government inpromoting startup activities.

Earlier, the bank also introduced its preferential policies forcompanies entering the agricultural sector.

Local enterprises have faced difficulties relating to landfunding, technology and capital.

Statistics showed that the number of businesses in agriculturehas been modest, with only 4,000 out of 600,000 firms operating in the sector.

Le Xuan Vu, VietABank’s general director, said the bank hadfocused on developing agricultural value and technological value chains.

In addition, the bank introduced many loans with preferentialinterest rates over a period of several years to support businesses.

The bank would build many suitable products and programmes tostrengthen its commitment to further support firms. — VNA