Promoting the Roles of Enterprises, Entrepreneurs

Meanwhile, the Southern VCCI Membership Conference was also organised in Ho Chi Minh City on December 2, 2013. Overarching contents of VCCI Membership Conferences are to look into documents to be represented at the upcoming sixth VCCI Congress in order to create a united voice of the business community to develop and contribute to the economy in 2014.

 

Remarking on the development of the business community, VCCI Vice President Hoang Van Dung said, in the past five years, especially in the latest two years, Vietnamese enterprises have grasped plenty of business opportunities offered by international integration, but the business community has also faced many problems caused by macroeconomic instability. Corporate bankruptcies have been high. Weak competitiveness and low productivity are the biggest problems of enterprises for the time being.

 

VCCI has generalised practices and collected feedback from enterprises and entrepreneurs to support policymakers to compile better policies and laws on economic and business development and market regime perfection in Vietnam. Annually, VCCI contributes constructive ideas to over 60 draft legal documents or international agreements and organises 1,564 workshops, conferences and seminars on legislation and policymaking, an increase of four times over the previous term). VCCI researches and publishes annual reports and other periodicals on business status and timely proposes solutions and policies with the Government. Spring/Autumn Economic Forums hosted by VCCI in coordination with the National Assembly’s Economic Commission and Vietnam Business Forum (VBF) co-chaired by VCCI President in collaboration with the business communities in Vietnam are the largest and most prestigious dialogue forums on economic policy in Vietnam. A lot of VCCI’s opinions and recommendations put forth at conferences, workshops, seminars and reports have been received and appreciated by the Party, National Assembly and the Government.

 

An outstanding result in the current term of VCCI was the proposal, compilation, development and submission of a scheme to the Politburo which served as the foundation for the promulgation of Resolution 09/NQ-TW on building and promoting the roles of entrepreneurs in the period of accelerated industrialisation, modernisation and international integration – the Party’s first document on entrepreneurs in more than 80 years. This is a breakthrough way of thinking as it affirms the role and position of Vietnamese entrepreneur force in national construction and defence. The document defines the task that building a growing and powerful entrepreneur force of Vietnam is the responsibility of the entire political system and it proposes solutions to building and developing the business community and the entrepreneur force in the new context.

 

VCCI Vice President Dung said, in the spirit of Resolution 09/NQ-TW and with the increasing role of entrepreneurs and enterprises in Vietnam’s socialist-oriented market economy, the VCCI President – at National Assembly’s forums, recommended adding entrepreneurs and businesses to the Constitution, asserting the State policies on encouragement, facilitation and protection of all production and business organisations and individuals and particularly focusing on the mainstay force – enterprises with modern, professional, transparent and highly competitive production and business models administered by entrepreneurs. The recommendations were received by the National Assembly and entrepreneurs and enterprises were officially added to the new Constitution for the first time in history.

 

In addition to advising on the improvement of institutional environment and economic policies of the country, VCCI actively and effectively participates in international integration policy study and canvassing. VCCI has studied and consulted for Government delegations when they took part in negotiations of important international trade agreements like Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, agreements in the framework of Doha Round, and bilateral trade agreements with the EU, South Korea and other partners.

 

He added that enterprise training and development and entrepreneur force construction have made significant progress in both quantity and quality. In the 2008-2013 tenure, VCCI has organised 6,071 training courses for nearly 305,665 trainees from enterprises nationwide, an increase of 90 percent in classes and 73 percent of trainees compared with the previous term. VCCI has also implemented numerous innovative programmes and projects to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), develop supporting industries, focus on remote and rural area development, and sustain business development. Trade and investment promotion activities have been innovatively and comprehensively carried out.

 

So far, VCCI has established close cooperative relations with 120 chambers of commerce and industry and trade - investment promotion agencies in the world. VCCI has admitted nearly 3,500 members, raising the total membership to over 100,000, including over 11,000 direct members.

 

VCCI Vice President Dung said in the coming years, especially in the early years of the sixth term of the VCCI Congress, difficulties will still stalk the economy and business community. Thus, the two core tasks of the next VCCI term are proposing the Party and the State on policies and institutions and carrying out activities, in its function and capacity, to remove difficulties and support businesses to survive and sustain production and business activities. Besides, VCCI will also support enterprises to accelerate corporate restructuring to enhance competitiveness and sustain development.

 

VCCI also lays out seven tasks for the upcoming term: (1) Continue to research and propose policies and measures to effectively implement Resolution 09-NQ/TW of the Politburo on building and promoting the role of Vietnamese entrepreneurs in the period of accelerated industrialisation, modernisation and international integration; (2) continue to deploy activities to improve business environment, especially local business environment; (3) support enterprises to carry out effective restructuring; (4) take part in policymaking; (5) effectively perform the role of employers’ representative at the national level; (6), expand and improve the quality of trade – investment promotion activities, increase opportunities of business development for enterprises and enhance business support service system; and (7) continue to renovate operations of VCCI organs towards increased flexibility and professionalism.

 

Some participants suggested VCCI increase its representative presence in other nations to work with Vietnamese embassies and commercial counsellors in foreign countries to provide better support for the business community, set up councils of business associations in provinces and cities to facilitate business connectivity, create new business development models in Vietnam easily, and make certain impacts on the development of supporting industries.