Gov’t to boost private investment to accelerate post-pandemic growth
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – The Government is focusing on boosting the
development of enterprises and encouraging private investment to accelerate
post-pandemic economic growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed enterprises into difficulties and the
Government’s target of having one million firms by the end of this year might
be 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 by
13.2 percent against the same period last year while the number of firms
temporarily 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 than
2019.
A survey conducted by the ministry at the end of April found that about 86 percent
of firms suffered negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this landscape, the Government identified domestic private investment among
drivers of economic growth, besides strengthening exports, accelerating public
investment, encouraging domestic consumption and attracting foreign direct
investment.
Unprecedented fiscal and credit packages were really helpful to enterprises to
overcome the difficult time, Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said.
VCCI’s survey conducted earlier this month revealed that 55 percent of firms
would maintain their operation scale in the third quarter of this year, 22 percent
planned expansion while only 21 percent would narrow their business. VCCI said
that the trend was better than the findings a month ago.
Besides urgent measures to support firms after the pandemic, the Government was
also hastening administrative reforms to create favourable conditions for
businesses and attract private investment.
Latest figures showed that some 3,893 out of 6,191 business prerequisites were
removed or simplified together with 6,776 out of 9,926 categories of goods
subjected 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 legal
documents to remove overlaps or inconsistencies as well as the regulations
which 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 number
of regulations would be removed or simplified and at least 20 percent of
compliance costs firms incurred to adhere to Government regulations which were
in effect as of May 31 would be reduced.
Phan Duc Hieu, Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic
Management, said that the resolution was a more comprehensive administrative
reform programme than implemented previously.
Under this regulation, any regulations which caused difficulties to enterprises
must be removed, this was different, Hieu said.
Tran Dinh Thien, former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, said
that the resilience of the post-pandemic economy would largely depend on the
ability of enterprises to stand up.
Thien, however, noted that the resources should not be wasted on inefficient
businesses, instead, should focus on those which brought efficiencies./.