A Government to Business (G2B) conference opened on Thursday, providing a platform where the Government can explore the private sector’s opinions and proposals.

Presided over by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the hybrid event brought together cabinet members, representatives from Party and National Assembly committees, local administrations, industry leaders, and businesses.

It is also an opportunity for the two sides to discuss how global uncertainties are impacting the country’s socio-economic growth, and chalk out ways to boost production for a faster and more sustainable economic recovery and development.

Addressing the event, the PM said thanks to tireless efforts over the last two years, Viet Nam has managed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, with a stable macro-economy, inflation under control and positive economic growth.

The conference is held for the Government to learn about private enterprises’ losses and challenges facing them during the two years of the pandemic and honour the business community for having made contributions to the country at a time of hardship, Chinh said.

Urging the development of an independent, self-reliant and globally-integrated economy with a strong business community, the PM said participants must come together to evaluate the private sector’s two-year performance and put forward recommendations for the business community to develop and mature healthily, contributing to fast and sustainable socio-economic growth.

The PM emphasised a number of important issues for the development of the economy and the business community.

These include continuing to maintain macroeconomic stability, control inflation, promote growth, and ensure major balances of the economy.

Enterprises must promote strong, safe, healthy, sustainable, open and transparent markets such as the real estate market, capital market, and labour market.

He stressed the improvement of the business investment environment, administrative reform and the building of a digital economy, digital government, digital society, and digital citizens.

The PM underlined the need to firmly protect independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, maintain political stability, ensure social order, security, and people's safety; boost production, business and create jobs for people.

He asked the ministries, branches and localities to review the difficulties and obstacles of all types of enterprises, and at the same time have a plan to deal with them in a timely and effective manner.

The PM called for the disbursement of public investment capital sources and activating all capital sources in society, including enterprise capital.

Finally, he emphasised understanding the situation, researching and forecasting strategies, and providing accurate and timely information to help businesses develop, diversify types of markets, innovate technology and digital transformation.

Accordingly, the Prime Minister stated specific short-term tasks to focus on. These include urgently removing obstacles and legal barriers that have existed for a long time, which have not been resolved, and hindered production and business activities; continue to reduce taxes, petrol fees, and costs of raw materials and input materials for production and business.

Others include implementing COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, especially vaccinations; strengthening the connection between labour supply and demand, while training and re-training workers to meet market requirements.

It was also necessary to step up planning and investment in the construction of socio-economic infrastructure in order to improve the capacity and competitiveness of the economy.

The final task is institutional reform, reduction and simplification of administrative and business conditions, improvement of the business environment, promotion of the implementation of online procedures, non-cash payments, and fighting corruption.

Government’s economic policies prove effective: Minister

The impressive economic growth in the first seven months of this year reflects the efficiency of the policies that have been applied recently, said Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung at the meeting.

The minister said that international organisations have shown optimism about the Vietnamese economy, rating the country’s long-term credit as "stable" and "positive".

Many economists held that the Vietnamese economic resilience is relatively good, he added.

The official cited a recent survey as showing that in the second quarter of this year, 70-80 per cent of total businesses highly valued the effectiveness of the Government’s support to businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those in taxation.

As of the end of July, the country had 871,000 companies, up nearly 13 per cent over 2019.

In July alone, more than 130,000 firms joined and re-joined the market, a rise of 26.8 per cent year on year, he said, adding that investment poured into the economy in the first seven months topped VND3.3 quadrillion (US$141.11 billion), a year-on-year increase of 37 per cent.

The market for a number of sectors, especially the domestic market, has recovered by 75-85 per cent compared to the period before the pandemic.

In the January-July period, the country’s export revenue was estimated at $216.35 billion, a rise of 16.1 per cent year on year, with 30 products having export revenue of more than $1 billion.

Minister Dung underlined that investors and businesses’ confidence has continued to be reinforced, with nearly 92 per cent of the enterprises expecting stable and expanded operations in the third quarter, and 85 per cent of manufacturing-processing companies forecasting stable and better business in the same period of time.

However, the official pointed to a number of shortcomings of the Vietnamese business community, including the small scale of the majority of businesses (98 per cent), limited science-technology capacity, and their modest engagement in the global value chain.

He highlighted a number of reasons behind the situation, especially those in legal documents and institutions, which were continuously reported during previous meetings between the PM and the business community but have yet to receive satisfactory solutions. — VNS