CellMech International Vina Co, Ltd, in Vinh Phuc province.(Photo: VNA) Hoang Quang Phong, Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce andIndustry (VCCI), said Vietnam would build an independent and self-relianteconomy in the context of international integration, adding the Party hasproperly understood and appreciated the role of businesspeople in realising thegoal of building an independent and self-reliant economy, especially in thecurrent context of deep integration.
Phong said such efforts helped the team of entrepreneurs and businesses togrow. By the end of 2021, Vietnam had nearly 860,000 enterprises in operation,about 15,300 non-agricultural cooperatives and about 5.1 million businesshouseholds.
He announced six local entrepreneurs had entered the top "dollarbillionaires" globally in 2021 and 124 businesses with 283 products thatare national brands, saying some brands resonate and affirm their brand valuein regional and international markets such as Viettel, Vinamilk, VinFast,Thaco, TH True Milk and ST25 rice.
From another angle, he said business development still faced many difficultiesand has not met expectations as the number of enterprises was unlikely to reachthe set target of 1.5 million enterprises by 2025 while the quality ofenterprises in value chains and global production networks were still limited,and have not yet taken full advantage of the opportunities brought by FTAs.
There are still some businesspeople who violate ethics, traditional culture andeven the law, he told a seminar held by VCCI on September 27 aimed to improvecompetitiveness for the business community to develop and grow the localeconomy.
It is necessary to build a team of Vietnamese entrepreneurs who are not onlytalented but also have business ethics and culture, thus contributing to makingVietnam a developing country with modern industry and high average income by2030; and a high-income developed country by 2045 as said in the Resolution ofthe 13th National Party Congress.
Deputy Director of the Department of Enterprise Development, Ministry ofPlanning and Investment Bui Thu Thuy told the seminar: “There are about 878,600enterprises operating in the whole country; of which 97.2% are small and mediumsized.”
She added despite being ranked as a large enterprise, the averagesize of large enterprises in the private sector in Vietnam was also muchsmaller than the average in other countries in the ASEAN region.
At the same time, Vietnam’s stock market is home to the largest concentrationof private enterprises with a large number of listed companies compared toother stock exchanges in the region, said Thuy.
According to newly updated data, although Vietnam’s stock market has a goodgrowth rate, the average capitalisation of enterprises listed on the twoexchanges in Hanoi and HCM City was still far behind other countries in theregion.
Compared to countries such as Singapore, the Philippines,Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, the governance level of Vietnam’s largeenterprises was still very low, only half of that of countries with highcorporate governance scores.
This may partly explain the ability of large enterprises to grow and reach theregional and world level in these countries, which is still much higher thanthat of large enterprises in Vietnam.
According to the assessment, Vietnamese enterprises still have many limitationsin risk management issues; information disclosure and transparency; activitiesof the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board. Not to mention, goodcorporate governance practices in recent times have added to the assessment ofenvironmental protection policies in the practice of production and business activitiesof enterprises. This is a very new criterion for most Vietnamese businesses.
Le Xuan Sang, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, said thatin the process of building an independent - self-reliant economy associatedwith integration, Vietnam has seen many important achievements withincreasingly diversified industries, and enhanced production capacity, strongdevelopment of private businesses and large corporations of international andregional stature.
Sang said in order to seize opportunities, deal with challenges and be a link,enterprises need to be proactive and active in improving their own capacity andcompetitiveness.
Sang suggested enterprises change management and administration methods, have abrand development strategy, actively register and manage product trademarks forlegal protection; improve the ability to participate in the global value chainin the stages of product design, product distribution, supporting research andtraining development.
To overcome the limitations of small scale and limited capital, small andmedium enterprises should attract external capital; promote association andcooperation activities with other enterprises.
Along with that, experts at the seminar said they should focus on developinghuman resources, improve professional qualifications and pay attention todeeper understanding of rules of origin; intellectual property; andadministrative procedures - customs, especially commitments under free tradeagreements./.
VNA
