HCM CITY (Biz Hub) — The Vietnamese Government is encouraging public-private partnerships, a mode of investment that has been successfully tried in many countries.

"It is an opportunity to tighten the connection between State management agencies and business associations, especially the Việt Nam Association for Women Entrepreneurs (VAWE)," Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Ho Thi Kim Thoa, who is also chairwoman of the VAWE, said in her opening speech at the "Enhancement of the public – private partnership between MOIT and VAWE" workshop in HCM City on Thursday.

The Government offers incentives for forming stronger public-private partnerships (PPPs): A prime ministerial decision, for instance, promulgates PPPs as a tool to mobilise capital and improve technology, management and operational efficiency, thus contributing to national development.

"Today's workshop helped women-owned and -led enterprises, which comprise 25 per cent of all Vietnamese enterprises, to better understand how to benefit from these government incentives and programmes and promote their participation in the supply chain," Thoa added.

The workshop also informed enterprises about market opportunities and new distribution channels resulting from free trade agreements Viet Nam has signed, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Besides, participants connected and exchanged ideas with potential partners.

In 2010 there were 65,000 women business leaders, and the figure was up to 91,000 by 2015.

Sixty per cent of women managers and leaders are in agriculture and rural businesses and the rest in services, Thoa said, adding woman entrepreneurs make up a key part of the country's key human resources.

The Government has set a target of increasing the rate of women entrepreneurs to 35 per cent or more by 2020, with at least 350,000 enterprises headed by them.

Nearly 200 businesswomen from central and southern provinces and cities took part in the workshop. – VNS