The business community is the driving force of economic development.

On the morning of February 10, 2025, in Hanoi , Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired the Government Standing Committee's meeting with businesses, discussing tasks and solutions for private enterprises to accelerate, make breakthroughs, and contribute to the country's rapid and sustainable development in the new era.

Government Standing Committee meets with businesses - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

At the Conference, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung gave a report, emphasizing the role of the business community in socio-economic development, and proposed major orientations and solutions in the coming period.

Important Contribution

According to Minister Nguyen Chi Dung, after nearly 40 years of Doi Moi, Vietnam has built a business community that is growing stronger in both quantity and quality. Currently, the country has more than 940,000 operating enterprises, more than 30,000 cooperatives and over 5 million business households. In 2024 alone, the number of newly established and re-established enterprises reached a record high, with more than 233,000 enterprises - the highest number ever. In particular, a number of Vietnamese enterprises have reached out to the region and the world, affirming their position in the global supply chain.

The business force currently contributes about 60% of GDP, accounts for 98% of total export turnover and creates jobs for about 85% of the country's workforce. In 2024, Vietnam's economy has achieved remarkable achievements: GDP growth of 7.09%, among the highest growth countries in the world; economic scale reached 476.3 billion USD, ranked 33rd globally; import-export turnover reached 786 billion USD, putting Vietnam in the group of 20 largest trading economies in the world. In addition, state budget revenue exceeded the estimate by 19.8%, of which revenue from the non-state economic sector exceeded 20.7%... These positive results have a significant contribution from the business community.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung

The investment and business environment in Vietnam in 2024 has been significantly improved with many breakthrough reforms. Typically, the amendment of 4 Laws: Planning, Investment, PPP, Bidding and 9 laws in the financial sector have created favorable conditions for investment and business activities; supplemented regulations on special investment procedures, creating a "green channel" for project implementation, helping to reduce time and costs for businesses.

The Prime Minister has established Steering Committees and working groups to support and remove difficulties and obstacles for businesses; continue the policy of reducing and extending taxes to support businesses in reducing costs and stimulating consumption... All 111 national, regional, provincial and industry plans have been developed and approved. This is a very important basis to help businesses clearly identify priority areas and potential investment areas to build appropriate business development strategies... These policies demonstrate the timely attention of the Government and the Prime Minister, helping the business community restore and increase confidence, increase investment, and expand production and business.

However, the Minister also frankly acknowledged the shortcomings and limitations of Vietnamese private enterprises. Most enterprises are still small in scale, with low competitiveness and operational efficiency. Business thinking is still short-term, lacking strategic vision. Although there are many medium and large-scale enterprises, they have not really become the leading force of the economy as expected. In particular, there is still a lack of large-scale projects in high-tech and leading fields. In addition, some industries are still facing difficulties, market purchasing power is recovering slowly, and key infrastructure projects are being implemented slowly due to legal problems. Minister Nguyen Chi Dung emphasized that institutions and laws are still "bottlenecks of bottlenecks", hindering business development.

Suggest solutions

Entering 2025 - a year of great significance in the Socio-Economic Development Plan for the 2021-2025 period, the Government sets a GDP growth target of 8% or more, creating a solid foundation for double-digit growth from 2026. According to Minister Nguyen Chi Dung, to achieve this goal, the private economic sector needs to grow by about 11% per year. Faced with new development requirements, the business community in general and the private enterprise team in particular need to further promote their role and mission in the country's socio-economic development.

“The development goals and requirements set for the coming time require high determination, great efforts, drastic actions of the entire political system, and consensus and joint efforts of the business community,” Minister Nguyen Chi Dung emphasized.

With that spirit, to support business development, the Ministry of Planning and Investment suggests some orientations and solutions as follows:

Firstly, there is a high level of consensus on the particularly important role of enterprises in general and private enterprises in particular in socio-economic development. Identifying private economic development as one of the most important driving forces contributing to growth, increasing labor productivity and competitiveness of the economy.

Second, focus on perfecting institutions, identifying institutions as the “breakthrough of breakthroughs”, creating the most favorable business environment for enterprises. Right in 2025, we must truly innovate the thinking of law-making in the direction of “development creation”, abandoning the thinking of “if you can’t manage, then ban”; promote the method of “management by results”, strongly shifting from “pre-inspection” to “post-inspection” associated with strengthening inspection and supervision.

Prioritize reviewing and immediately removing difficulties and obstacles for real estate, BOT, BT, transportation, renewable energy projects... In the immediate future, focus on projects in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang and some large localities to free up resources for businesses and the economy in 2025. At the same time, research to expand the scope, subjects, and areas of application of some pilot and specific mechanisms and policies that have been approved by the National Assembly to be applied in localities and have proven effective.

Third, unleash all resources, use state resources to arouse, lead, and activate social resources. Focus on investment, accelerate the progress of strategic and important infrastructure projects; have mechanisms and policies for domestic enterprises to participate in key and important national projects; immediately develop and implement specific, outstanding mechanisms and policies with regional and international competitiveness to form financial centers and free trade zones; promote the mobilization of idle capital from enterprises and people, shifting from savings to investment in production and business.

Fourth, resolutely implement Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, identifying science and technology, innovation and digital transformation as the top important breakthroughs and the main driving force for the rapid development of modern productive forces.

Fifth, build mechanisms and policies to form and develop large-scale, ethnic enterprises to lead the domestic value chain and expand participation in the international market; promote the effectiveness of the Investment Support Fund; continue to perfect mechanisms and policies to support small and medium-sized enterprises to participate more deeply in the global value chain; have strong enough policies to strengthen the linkage between domestic enterprises and FDI enterprises; selectively attract FDI, linked to the development of domestic enterprises.

Sixth, promote consumer demand stimulation and expand the market for businesses. Create conditions for domestic businesses to produce domestic products with strengths, capable of maintaining and gradually dominating the domestic market; focus on implementing the campaign "Vietnamese people prioritize using Vietnamese products", activating sustainable consumption trends, consuming products with high domestic value.

For the business community, it is necessary to proactively innovate business thinking, improve management capacity, productivity, quality, and competitiveness; enhance innovation, research, development, and application of science and technology, build Vietnamese brands in the international market; and enhance responsibility to the community, society, and nation.

Large enterprises need to promote their pioneering role more strongly in big, difficult, and new tasks, proactively taking on the task of solving national-level problems to create momentum for economic development; promote the role of "leading enterprises", technology transfer, proactively form joint ventures, associations, and leadership, and create opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in development along the value chain.

On the part of business associations, it is necessary to promote the role of a bridge between the Government and the business community. Increase participation in dialogue, promptly monitor and grasp the difficulties and problems of the business community, and report them to competent authorities for handling. Improve the operational efficiency of association organizations, protect the interests of member businesses, especially in trade and dumping lawsuits; promote business linkages, support investment and business connections.

Source: https://thoibaonganhang.vn/cong-dong-doanh-nghiep-la-dong-luc-phat-trien-kinh-te-160330.html