[5 May 2019] — The private sector plays a crucial role in the national economy and should be given impetus to develop.  Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc made the statement at the plenary session of the Việt Nam Private Economic Forum held in Hà Nội. He affirmed Việt Nam had gained numerous achievements after more than three decades of reform thank to the Party and Government’s consistent policies aimed at developing a multi-sectoral economy.

The Vietnamese Government always aims to aid the private sector’s development, according to the Prime Minister. The country wants to have about 1 million enterprises established by 2020, the majority of which will be private firms. Though the private sector now accounts for 42 per cent of GDP, more can be done to reach the sector’s full potential.

“The private sector has still faced many difficulties, thus we need to create more favourable conditions, including fair opportunities and access to resources, for their development,” he said.  PM Phúc also suggested several solutions that could be used to promote the advantages of the business community and expand their market shares in foreign markets.

“We need to create space, resources and opportunities for the private sector to develop more smoothly,” he said. The PM mentioned equality, protection, encouragement and giving opportunities to private economy as important.  Regarding human resources, he shared the participants' view that the Government needed to focus on both quantity and quality of the workforce and to open new training areas such as artificial intelligence.

NA Vice Chairman Phùng Quốc Hiển said the Government should complete policies and mechanisms relating to the private sector. “The Government should review the legal system, especially areas related to institutions, civil servants law, economic regimes and economic policies, such as investment law and ownership law, intellectual law and land law. These laws must break barriers and enable private businesses to access land, financial and production resources. In addition, efforts should be made to reduce compliance costs. Obstacles like business fees, along with unofficial expenses make it difficult for businesses,” he added.

TH Group founder Thái Hương proposed some suggestions for the country’s agricultural development. She proposed the Government consider the goal “creating agricultural, forestry and fishery chains with high commercial value, meeting the requirements of key markets” as a key issue to create a breakthrough.

She called for focus on successful implementation of the pilot project of forming and developing agricultural and fishery chains with high value, meeting the requirements of target markets, such as milk product chains freshly exported to China, shrimp exported to the US, Canada, EU, and the vegetable-root-fruit chain to master the key markets.

To make this possible, specific recommendations would be needed, such as re-analysing markets, focusing on each sector, agricultural product groups and reorganising production. Việt Nam also needed to digitise and formulate the national agricultural database in 2019.  She also proposed clearly identifying leading businesses in the agricultural sector, thereby developing mechanisms and policies to develop this group.

Nguyễn Thị Phương Thảo, CEO of Vietjet, said the country had received significant contributions from top private firms. On average, the private sector annually provided 1.2 million jobs, resulting in a great contribution to the nation’s GDP growth.

Thao called for consensus in terms of perception and actions among the Government, authorities and agencies with regards to the development of the private sector. She said the Government should hasten the restructuring and equitisation of State-owned enterprises and commercial banks, aiming to ease negative impacts on macro-financial stability and growth outlooks.

The Government should improve mechanisms and policies, as well as set forth measures to accelerate the growth of the private sector, with a view to optimising the use of private resources to upgrade infrastructure items and making the most of opportunities arising from the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  

She hoped that private firms would receive equal treatment for their development.  

PM Phúc and State leaders participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony of the opening of the Private Economic Achievement Exhibition. With about 30 booths, the exhibition focuses on many key areas of the economy such as finance, banking, industrial production, consumer, medicine, technology, transportation of many big companies including VinFast, TH, BIM Group, TTC, Grab and TomoChain. — VNS