On April 2, the prime minister of Laos issued the Decision on the Policies and Measures to Reduce the Impact from the COVID-19 Pandemic. A number of the measures announced will affect locally established business operators.Relief Measures

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led Thailand’s Ministry of Finance, with the approval of the cabinet, to implement tax and non-tax relief measures to aid the general public, workers, and entrepreneurs. The tax relief measures, two phases of which have been released to date, are detailed below.Phase I Tax Relief Measures – March 10, 2020Reduction of withholding tax rates. This measure, which is already in effect, reduces withholding tax from 3% to 1.5% for the following types of payments made between April 1, 2020, and September 30, 2020:

On March 31, 2020, Vietnam issued Directive No. 16/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister of Vietnam, setting out a wide range of social distancing measures, which we covered in an earlier client alert (click here for details). Following this nationwide announcement, local authorities in various provinces and cities have released their own guidance on implementation of measures for preventing and controlling the COVID-19 outbreak.

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.