At the meeting, the Chairman of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Vu Tien Loc said, at present, Vietnam has 500 business associations, which are mostly members of the VCCI. Recently, business associations have carried out meaningful activities, especially organizing trade and investment promotion activities, training and taking part in developing policies, reducing poverty. Many ministries and administrative agencies have established discussion mechanism for business associations and enterprises. Some ministries and agencies have authorized business associations to carry out events such as “Business Café Talk”, competitiveness ranking for districts, wards departments, as well as to carry out some public online services.
Mr. Vu Tien Loc said, positive news enterprises received before the entrepreneurs’ day October 13 is that the Government has issued the program to promote private economy (Decree No. 98/NQ-CP dated October 3 on the action plan of the government implementing the Decree No. 10-NQ/TW).
It is expected, that this program will bring benefits to the enterprises community, Mr. Vu Tien Loc said this will be an encouragement to entrepreneurs to focus on business and working toward the prosperity for the society and the country. Speaking at the meeting, representatives of business association highly appreciated the effort of the Government and the Prime Minister in developing a transparent government, with an aim to serve citizens and enterprises. Recommendations at the meeting also focus on requesting the government to put up effort in improving business environment, creating a fair playground between private enterprises and state owned enterprises, at the same time improving the entrepreneurship, and cooperation between all parties.
Congratulating on the successes of entrepreneurs, the Prime Minister said with the effort of all economic components, Vietnam is expected to achieve and exceed all socio-economic targets in 2017. With this being said, the success of Vietnam has a large contribution from business community. Through ideas and recommendations of leaders from business community, the Prime Minister said ”The belief of enterprises toward the government and the state is growing stronger”. The Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said, in recent years, the government has put up effort in improving business environment in Vietnam. Organizations such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Bank (WB) highly regarded the improvement of Vietnam. With the consulting from associations, the government has removed more than 5,000 administrative procedures, especially conditions considered as barriers to the business environment. As such, the Prime Minister said recommendations and suggestions of the business community are very important.
The Prime Minister said the government will continue innovating, reforming, opening more conference with the business community at all level and different scale.
The government has made numerous commitments to help businesses. Many of them have translated into actions. Since assuming the role of prime minister, the head of the government has attended 25 investment conferences, hundreds of dialogues with enterprises as well as thematic sessions on high-tech agriculture, tourism and aquaculture. From these meetings, obstacles to business operations have been identified and addressed. Regulations and policies have been issued to improve the business environment. At the recent meeting between the prime minister and enterprises, the problem of over-inspections aroused and immediately at the end of the meeting, the head of government signed an instruction to remedy the inspection work.
However, difficulties need a straight approach to be addressed. A survey conducted by the Vietnam Young Entrepreneur Association before the Forum showed that 44% of the responses said that they have missed business opportunities due to institutional barriers and limited market. Only 33% said the business environment has improved in 2016, while the rate for 2017 is 37%. With this being said, despite the right direction and effort put into the improvement of business environment, there are much work to be done. And when the key for economic growth is handed over to the private sectors alongside the commitment “let the private enterprises to operate in any fields they have advantages of”, this is the signal and motivation for enterprises to become the driving force behind the economic growth.
