BEIJING: China rolled out a raft of measures on Sunday (March 1) to provisionally defer loan payments for small businesses to tide them over the difficulties amid theCovid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak, according to the country's top banking and insurance regulator. For virus-striken micro-, small- and medium-sized companies, financial institutions shall defer their loan principal repayments that have matured since Jan 25, said a document released by five central departments including the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC). Meanwhile, their interest payments between Jan 25 and June 30 can be deferred to June 30, with penalty interest payments exempted, the document said. The CBIRC also stressed to bolster eligible companies with temporary liquidity difficulty in the epidemic, forbid one-size-fits-all practices and promote information sharing in offering credit support. China has so far reported 2,870 deaths among 79,824 cases up to 11pm on Sunday.

Source: The Star March 01, 2020 16:30 UTC