HCM City (VNS/VNA) - With the COVID-19 pandemic basically controlled,businesses in the south-eastern region of Vietnam are gradually resumingproduction.

The pandemichas been gradually brought under control in hotspots such as Ho Chi Minh City andBinh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An provinces, paving the way for them to relaxmeasures to revive the economy.

They havetweaked many policies to adapt to the new context, giving hope to businessesduring this hard period.

Resolution 128issued recently by the Government on ‘Safe adaptation, flexibility andeffective control of the COVID-19 pandemic,’ which lists criteria to assess thelevel of pandemic risk and unified response measures by all localities,agencies and businesses, is good news for enterprises.

According tobusinesses, the spelling out of risk levels lets them know when they cancontinue operation and when they need to temporarily stop.

Unifiedregulations also prevent local authorities from creating their own regulations,enabling companies to develop and implement business plans, they said.

In Binh Duong province,3,330 businesses with 331,585 workers have resumed operations. The province hasmade efforts to sustain production to prevent supply chain disruption.

Localauthorities said they are striving to ensure 90 percent of businesses resumeoperations by the end of this month and 100 percent by the end of this year.

The managementof the province’s industrial parks is speeding up vaccination for experts andworkers to achieve the goal of returning to normal by early 2022.

In Binh Phuoc province,42,540 workers at 166 enterprises in industrial parks have returned to work.More than 3,000 businesses outside the parks with over 56,000 workers have alsoresumed operations. Nearly 100 companies have announced plans to hire 9,200workers.

In Dong Nai province1,582 out of a total of 1,713 companies with 497,050 employees have resumedoperations.

But they facenumerous challenges like a shortage of workers after a large number returned totheir hometowns during the lockdown, rising costs of inputs and lack of funds.

Businesseshave taken a cautious approach to reopening since the vaccination rate in somelocalities is only 20 percent.

Vo Tri Thanh, Directorof the Institute for Brand and Competitive Strategy, said support policies needto be implemented quickly and in a co-ordinated manner to help businessesrecover and catch up with the rest of the world.

“The mostimportant thing for businesses now is a support package which is big enough …and is implemented quickly enough,” he told Vietnam News./.