The Bank of Lao PDR (BOL) has issued guidelines to provide relief to debtors affected by the current crisis. The Decision on Policy in respect of Loans to Provide Remedial Measures Due to the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic no.238/BOL, dated March 26, 2020, aims to assist individuals and legal entities that have contracted with Lao commercial banks and financial institutions on loan agreements, and for whom the originally agreed upon repayment terms can no longer be met due to the COVID-19 crisis.

On March 18, 2020, Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular No. 04/2020/TT-BGDDT detailing a number of articles of the Government’s Decree No. 86/2018/ND-CP dated 6 June 2018 on Foreign Cooperation and Investment in Education (“Circular 4”). Circular 4 will take effect on May 5, 2020, and sets out, among other things, new requirements for international schools to provide compulsory Vietnamese language and culture studies to Vietnamese students.

On March 31, 2020, the Prime Minister of Vietnam issued Directive No. 16/CT-TTg, which sets out Vietnam’s strongest measures yet for preventing and controlling the COVID-19 virus.Notably, Directive 16 mandates strict social distancing throughout the country for 15 days, from April 1 through April 15. In the wording of the directive, “families should be distanced from families, villages should be distanced from villages … provinces should be distanced from provinces.”Practical Implications

All offices of the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam, including the head office in Hanoi and the representative offices in Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City (the “IP Office”), are currently closed until further notice due to the COVID-19 situation. The IP Office issued a notice on March 31, 2020, to address issues related to the closure, with the following main contents:

Delay in Social Security ContributionsOn March 20, 2020, Myanmar’s Social Security Board announced that it will allow employers to make social security payments quarterly, instead of monthly, due to the hardship businesses are facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This will provide a degree of relief for employers, although the measures do not yet go as far as reducing the required social security contributions.Workplace Requirements

On March 30, 2020, the Lao Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) issued Notification No. 0446/DIP Pursuant to Prime Minister’s Order No.06/PM—the latter being a general order imposing a lockdown in Laos to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

Due to the complicated and unpredictable developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vietnamese government has taken various measures, which have grown more stringent over time, to combat the spread of the disease. Due in part to these timely measures, as of Monday, March 30, Vietnam had reported just over 200 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and no fatalities—encouraging numbers for a country of its size.

Our team at Tilleke & Gibbins is pleased to share with our clients this guest column, providing insight into the impact of the coronavirus pandemic for creditors and debtors, written by Associate Professor Dr. Munin Pongsapan, Dean of the Faculty of Law, at Thammasat University.