Helping businesses overcome challenges

Ships dock at the specialized port of Hoa Phat Group to load and unload goods at the Hoa Phat Dung Quat Iron and Steel Production Complex (Quang Ngai). (Photo: MINH DUNG)

Over the past 20 days, the Government and the National Assembly have issued three resolutions with a series of special mechanisms and policies to promote the development of private enterprises. This is considered an important step to institutionalize Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW dated May 4, 2025 of the Politburo on private economic development.

Current difficulties

The Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) 2024 Report pointed out the top 5 difficulties that businesses are facing when up to 54% of surveyed businesses encountered obstacles in accessing credit loans, 49% could not find customers, 38% were affected by market fluctuations, 20% had difficulty finding business partners and finding suitable personnel.

In addition, the unstable and opaque legal environment and cumbersome administrative procedures are also factors hindering business development. Accordingly, less than 50% of businesses are satisfied with the conditional business licensing procedures, 24% of businesses spend more than 10% of their time researching and implementing legal regulations (an increase of 4% compared to 2022-2023), 22% of businesses report duplicate inspection content (a sharp increase compared to 8.5% in 2023), etc.

Data from the General Statistics Office ( Ministry of Finance ) is also reflecting market difficulties when in the first 4 months of 2025, the whole country had 96,500 enterprises withdrawing from the market, an increase of 12.2% over the same period last year, an average of more than 24,100 enterprises withdrawing from the market per month.

VCCI Vice President Hoang Quang Phong commented that these "bottlenecks" are considered the fundamental cause leading to the phenomenon of a large number of businesses withdrawing from the market because of difficulties in maintaining profits and competitiveness. There is a worrying reality when only 32% of businesses surveyed intend to expand production and business in the next two years.

Thus, the preferential and support policies issued by the State in recent times have not really been put into practice, the beneficiary groups are not many; the creation of fairness and conditions in accessing resources for business development is not really clear.

Dr. Tran Thi Hong Minh, Director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy Research, assessed that because 97% of enterprises in Vietnam are small and medium-sized, there is still a lack of close connection, and internal capacity is weak and limited.

In addition, the institutions and policies to promote business linkages are still inadequate, not facilitating investment and improving production and business capacity; the effectiveness of implementing support policies is still low. In particular, we lack specific policies, especially tax incentives, access to capital, credit guarantees, land, production and business premises, etc.

In order to clear the "bottleneck" in policy, after the Politburo issued Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW, the National Assembly quickly issued Resolution No. 198/2025/QH15 dated May 17, 2025 on a number of special mechanisms and policies for private economic development.

The Government also promptly issued Resolution No. 138/NQ-CP dated May 16, 2025 on the action plan to implement Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW and Resolution No. 139/NQ-CP dated May 17, 2025 on the plan to implement Resolution No. 198/2025/QH15. These are considered drastic moves in institutionalizing Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW of the Politburo.

Bringing resolutions to life quickly

Speaking at the National Conference on disseminating and implementing the Politburo's resolutions held on May 18, General Secretary To Lam emphasized: "The four important resolutions issued by the Politburo in recent times (Resolutions 57, 59, 66, 68) will be the fundamental institutional pillars, creating a strong driving force to bring our country forward in the new era - the era of development, prosperity, and strength of the Vietnamese people."

However, in order for these resolutions to quickly come into effect, there needs to be a comprehensive solution, with high determination, great efforts, drastic actions, and focus. In particular, it is urgent to remove institutional and legal bottlenecks that have been identified in accordance with the direction of the Prime Minister in Official Dispatch No. 63/CD-TTg dated May 12, 2025.

In addition to the solutions and macro policies from the State, according to Trinh Minh Anh, Chief of Office of the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee for International Economic Integration, up to now, although Vietnam has implemented 16 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), the ability of enterprises to exploit and take advantage of incentives from these FTAs ​​is assessed as not commensurate with the potential. Therefore, enterprises need to carefully study the technical standards, commitments in each FTA, rules of origin (C/O), and tariff regulations.

In particular, it is necessary to continuously update early warning information on trade defense from the Ministry of Industry and Trade; ensure that products meet the rules of origin and localization rate to enjoy tax incentives according to the regulations of each FTA; strengthen links with domestic or intra-FTA suppliers to increase the proportion of domestic raw materials and reduce dependence on external import sources.

Most importantly, we must improve competitiveness, invest in modern technology innovation, improve product design and quality, and meet green standards, because this is an opportunity to expand the consumer market and integrate deeply with the world.

Obviously, the current difficulties of enterprises are not small, but with the Politburo issuing many important resolutions in recent times, especially Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW which was institutionalized by the Government and the National Assembly with 3 resolutions issued immediately afterwards, these are very positive signs. These resolutions will be the premise, an important milestone opening a strong reform process, marking a profound change in strategic awareness of the role of the private sector.

However, policies can only be truly effective if businesses proactively make efforts to transform themselves and take advantage of opportunities created by the State. This is considered the "key" to help open the door for the Vietnamese economy to overcome all challenges and develop strongly and sustainably.

According to Nhan Dan Newspaper

Source: https://baohoabinh.com.vn/12/201239/Tro-luc-cho-doanh-nghiep-vuot-qua-thach-thuc.htm