HCM City (VNA) – Despite manydifficulties and challenges, the growth of private businesses will be thehighlight of Vietnam’s economy in the long term, heard a forum in Ho Chi MinhCity on January 6.

The Investment and Business Development Forumwas held by the Vietnam Association of Business Development ServicesOrganisations and e-magazine BizLIVE.vn.

Participants shared the view that private firmsshould be more active to help the economy overcome challenges and adapt tointernational standards.

They said the Government is planning to set up aspecial working group to deal with overlapping business-related regulations,which could be a breakthrough step in improving the investment and businessclimate in 2020.

Ministries and sectors are also working hard toaddress obstacles to public investment, thus boosting the disbursement ofpublic funds and stimulating private capital flow, they noted.

Economic expert Tran Du Lich, member of thePrime Minister’s economic advisory group, said Vietnam’s economy at present isbetter than five years ago. The factors that used to cause macro-economicuncertainties like the banking sector have now become very stable.

However, he also pointed out that there remainnumerous challenges facing the economy.

Taking businesses’ access to capital as anexample, Lich said five years ago, many companies complained about capitalshortages, and that remains an issue today. The economy doesn’t lack capital,but the problem is that companies are unable to access it.

The longer such bottlenecks exist, the moredifficult it is to handle them, he said, voicing his hope that the economy willdevelop at a higher level in the next 10 years, provided institutions andresources are promoted.

Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce andIndustry (VCCI) Vu Tien Loc said 2020 will be another year full of difficultiesand challenges for the economy due to the global growth slowdown. The size ofthe Vietnamese economy has expanded fast, but its health still has problems.

He cited statistics as showing that like inprevious years, the processing – manufacturing remained the “star” of theeconomy in 2019, but its unsold inventory was also high. Many businesses didnot report a profit while exports to most markets declined and were stilldominated by foreign invested firms.

Although the business environment has much improved,it has yet to meet expectations. Vietnam’s business climate currently ranksfifth in ASEAN, but there is still a long way to go to reach the target ofentering the top four, Loc added./.