Vietnam businesses want greater reforms to support recovery

Businesses are gearing up for post-pandemic recovery. — VNA/VNS

HANOI (Vietnam News/Asia News Network): Enterprises expect greater reforms to truly create a favourable business environment, according to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

VCCI’s recent report about business law flow 2021 revealed a paradox that while the Government was required to reduce compliance costs for enterprises, there were some policies being drafted that might push up costs and cause difficulties for firms.

“This makes the business environment improvement effort inconsistent and inefficient,” the Head of the VCCI’s Legal Department Đậu Anh Tuấn said.

The report pointed out that a majority of the business community expected the Government to remove and amend regulations about business lines that required prerequisites mentioned in the Investment Law 2020, together with the abolishment of other regulations which were causing difficulties for businesses.

Tuấn said that many drafted regulations were raising concerns that these policies would cause an additional cost burden on businesses, especially when many of them were in difficulty due to the prolonged impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Trần Hoàng Yến from the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP) said that seafood processing plants were facing problems related to meeting the National Technical Standard QCVN 11-MT:2015/BTNMT about wastewater.

She pointed out that too high standards affected not only domestic production but also exports of the seafood industry.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment was drafting amendments to this standard but it seems that the draft was stricter, worrying seafood companies, Yến said, adding that the standard must be suitable with reality, the specifics of the industry and compatible with the wastewater treatment technology capacity.

According to Hoàng Hải Anh, deputy president of the Vietnam Association of Securities Business, new trends in the market should be put into careful consideration to avoid being left behind, such as the application of artificial intelligence in securities investment.

The latest updates of the General Statistics Office showed that nearly 35,000 new firms were founded in the first quarter of this year, representing a rise of nearly 18 per cent against the same period last year, which reflected the recovery of businesses.

Besides post-pandemic economic stimulus packages, business environment improvement was what the business community expected the most, VCCI pointed out.

Most ministries developed plans to reduce compliance costs for enterprises with the goal of cutting at least 20 per cent of the costs to comply with the existing laws.

However, some proposals would cause more difficulties while some new policies were erecting new barriers for businesses, according to VCCI.

VCCI’s chairman Phạm Tấn Công said it was necessary to remove bottlenecks in the flow of business laws to ensure the circulation of economic activities. Careful research and evaluating the impact of policies were also of great importance to have timely policy responses and prevent negative impacts, Công said.

Nguyễn Minh Thảo from the Central Institute for Economic Management said that Việt Nam’s institutions encouraging innovations were not attractive enough as they would face a number of problems when implementing new business ideas.

Reforms should never be stopped, she said, adding that reforms should make Vietnam not only better but also keep up with new development trends.