Enterprises and and private investment were among key drivers to accelerate post-pandemic economic growth (Photo: baochinhphu.vn)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – The Government is focusing on boosting thedevelopment of enterprises and encouraging private investment to acceleratepost-pandemic economic growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed enterprises into difficulties and theGovernment’s target of having one million firms by the end of this year mightbe a long shot, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
The number of new firms set up in the first four months of this year fell by13.2 percent against the same period last year while the number of firmstemporarily halting operations rose by 33.6 percent.
The Agency for Business Registration forecast that even in the best scenario,the number of new firms this year would be around 125,000, 13,000 less than2019.
A survey conducted by the ministry at the end of April found that about 86 percentof firms suffered negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this landscape, the Government identified domestic private investment amongdrivers of economic growth, besides strengthening exports, accelerating publicinvestment, encouraging domestic consumption and attracting foreign directinvestment.
Unprecedented fiscal and credit packages were really helpful to enterprises toovercome the difficult time, Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber ofCommerce and Industry (VCCI) said.
VCCI’s survey conducted earlier this month revealed that 55 percent of firmswould maintain their operation scale in the third quarter of this year, 22 percentplanned expansion while only 21 percent would narrow their business. VCCI saidthat the trend was better than the findings a month ago.
Besides urgent measures to support firms after the pandemic, the Government wasalso hastening administrative reforms to create favourable conditions forbusinesses and attract private investment.
Latest figures showed that some 3,893 out of 6,191 business prerequisites wereremoved or simplified together with 6,776 out of 9,926 categories of goodssubjected to customs checks, which helped save an estimated 6.3 trillion VND.
A Prime Minister’s working group was also set up to review the existing legaldocuments to remove overlaps or inconsistencies as well as the regulationswhich were infeasible or causing difficulties to enterprises.
In the latest effort, the Government issued Resolution No 68/NQ-CP mid-May,setting targets for the 2021-25 period that at least 20 percent of the numberof regulations would be removed or simplified and at least 20 percent ofcompliance costs firms incurred to adhere to Government regulations which werein effect as of May 31 would be reduced.
Phan Duc Hieu, Deputy Director of the Central Institute for EconomicManagement, said that the resolution was a more comprehensive administrativereform programme than implemented previously.
Under this regulation, any regulations which caused difficulties to enterprisesmust be removed, this was different, Hieu said.
Tran Dinh Thien, former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, saidthat the resilience of the post-pandemic economy would largely depend on theability of enterprises to stand up.
Thien, however, noted that the resources should not be wasted on inefficientbusinesses, instead, should focus on those which brought efficiencies./.
