Businesses have to review their targets, strategies and activities to affirm their position and establish new supply chains. (Photo cafef.vn)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The target of one million businesses by 2020 could be hard to hit with theongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is optimism regarding the task.
Figures from the General Statistics Office (GSO) showed that nearly 37,600 new firms were established inVietnam, with registered capital of a combined 445.2 trillion VND (19.1 billion USD) in the first four months of thisyear, down 13.2 percent in number.
In April, the country had more than 4,000 companies stopping operations,increasing 68 percent from the previous month. The number of dissolvedenterprises totalled over 3,000. The number of dissolved firms or those haltingoperations was up to 42,000.
The reason was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing a downturn for both theglobal economy and Vietnam. This has made firms face difficulties and had to gobankrupt.
GSO General DirectorNguyen Bich Lam said the target of havingone million new businesses in 2020 was extremely hard and even impossible.
Lam said though thenumber of companies resuming operations increased by 2.1 percent in the period,the number was much lower than that of the same period last year. If thecountry could maintain last year's record growth rate of more than 138,000, thetotal number of businesses is expected to reach 900,000 this year.
However, economist Nguyen Minh Phong has a more positive view, saying that theCOVID-19 pandemic would pose a big challenge for the set target, but there isstill the potential to complete it.
The country now has 5-7million household businesses which have scale and effectiveness similar tosmall-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, the Ministry of Financesubmitted a proposal to the National Assembly to approve new policies to givefinancial supports for SMEs as well as new firms established from householdbusinesses. Accordingly, there would be policies for corporate income taxreductions or exemptions for such firms.
Phong expected that the number of new enterprises in Vietnam would see abreakthrough this year thanks to the support policies.
“Although it is not really sure, but with many expectations, we will strive toachieve the goal of one million businesses. From 2021, we believe that therewill be new breakthroughs,” Phong added.
He said there would be new changes in the market in a state of “new normal”,including requirements of improving product quality, the interruption oftraditional supply chains to open new business opportunities, new sectors andnew partners. Especially, there would be new modern business methods based one-commerce platforms.
Businesses therefore have to review their targets and strategies as well asactivities to affirm their position and establish new supply chains.
“Firms should pay attention to upgrading technologies to improve quality andcompetitiveness. They should have scenarios for different situations in thefuture," he added./.
VNA
