Tourism businesses can avail of soft loans

Tourism Secretary Bernadette Puyat

MANILA, Philippines — Tourism Secretary Bernadette Puyat has urged more tourism businesses to take advantage of interest-free soft loans under the Bayanihan 2 Act to help them recover from the pandemic.

Puyat said the government extended to two years the grace period for repayment to help those affected maintain operations and keep their workers.

She added that the loan terms had also been relaxed to encourage more micro, small and medium enterprises in the tourism industry to avail themselves of the loan facility managed by the Small Business Corp. of the Department of Trade and Industry.

The relaxed terms also allow a second round of loans for employee retention and a maximum loan of P5 million. —TINA G. SANTOS