This is the guidance of Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam to the Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD) at a recent meeting in Hanoi.
At the meeting, Mr Nguyen Quang Vinh, Secretary General of VBCSD, reported on VBCSD’s outstanding performance in 2015. Accordingly, VBCSD carried out many sustainable and responsible business models with the inclusion of businesses and low-income people in agriculture; successfully hosted the “Vietnam Business Sustainability Forum 2015,” coordinated with two United Nations agencies, namely the UN Global Compact and the International Trade Centre, to launch the integrated sustainable agriculture programme in Vietnam in the 2015-2018 period; and catalysed and supported enterprises to adopt sustainability reporting as a tool to enhance competitiveness, strengthen governance towards transparency and integrity, and fight against corruption.
Besides, VBCSD received and cooperated with domestic and international partners to develop corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility indices. After piloting at 30 companies in all northern, central and southern regions, VBCSD will assess and honour the most sustainable businesses in Vietnam.
VBCSD also held regular communication and aware-raising events; and organised 18 training sessions for 1,440 trainees on sustainable development, productivity and competitiveness improvement. Particularly, the council completed studies on corporate competitiveness in rubber, tea and coffee sectors and conducted case studies on labour productivity of the garment and textile sector in some northern provinces.
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam appreciated VCCI’s and VBCSD’s efforts to contribute their opinions to the formation and execution of resolutions, specially including Resolution 19 of the Government on improving the business environment and enhancing competitiveness. This not only helped improve the business environment, but also leveraged other innovation activities to build up the confidence of the business community and the society.
“When the Government of Vietnam and the World Bank recently built the Vietnam 2035 Report, member companies of VCCI and VBCSD actively responded with very specific recommendations on sustainable development,” he added.
Deputy PM Dam said, after more than one year of enforcing Resolution 19, the business environment of Vietnam has improved when the time required for paying taxes and insurance premiums or accessing electric energy has been substantially reduced, although more work needed to be done, including on land access, construction permit, business registration and dissolution.
The investment and business environment is extremely important. Resolution 19 aims to enhance transparency and ensure fair competition among companies of all economic sectors. Transparency means showing the allocation of resources to best companies in the society, regardless of composition and scale.
Therefore, Deputy PM Dam told companies to contribute more ideas to the process of reviewing those criteria and existing shortcomings in carrying out Resolution 19.
VBCSD needs to quickly issue a corporate sustainability index (CSI) according to international criteria. Deputy PM Dam noted that this important solution not only honours but also expands memberships for the sustainable business community which now has dozens of VBCSD members among more than 400,000 companies in operation in Vietnam.
VBCSD needs to develop and strengthen support for social enterprises; develop business start-up community, and encourage business start-up funds to create a favourable environment for the business community.
"The Government hopes to take the helping hand from member companies of VBCSD and VCCI in building sustainable national development," noted Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam.
VCCI President Vu Tien Loc said sustainability has been deployed not only within VBCSD but in all VCCI units.
He noted that VBCSD’s activities are relatively deep and focused, although they have not created enough spillover effects, established solid chain links or received adequate positive support from the business community. He wondered why State corporations and transnational corporations do not register memberships with the council.
Dr Loc suggested VBCSD take initiative to create ripple effects on the business community. “VBCSD must develop a set of corporate sustainability index (CSI) criteria, make public this index, and ask qualified companies to join. VCCI will publish the list of sustainable companies on its official websites as it has done with the provincial competitiveness index (PCI). Foreign companies will feel more secure to see data on official websites before they invest in Vietnam. VCCI will present awards to sustainable businesses in a bid to advance sustainable development movement,” said Dr Loc.
VBCSD Recommends EEW Solutions
The Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD) recently proposed to the Government a number of solutions for economic empowerment for women (EEW).
In its "Vision 2050" Report towards sustainable development, VBCSD confirmed that EEW is a must in 2020.
According to VBCSD, empowering women’s roles in the economy is part of financial and economic crisis solution as higher incomes for women also means greater investment for health, education, and nutrition for children. This leads to long-term economic growth and sustainable development.
EEW is a prerequisite for sustainable development, inclusive business and achievement of United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Women’s economic engagement and empowerment is fundamental to empowerment of women, thus enabling them to prove their positions in society.
Former US President Bill Clinton once said, “Women perform 66 percent of the world's work, and produce 50 percent of the food, yet earn only 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property, whether the issue is improving education in the developing world, or fighting global climate change, or addressing nearly any other challenge we face, empowering women is a critical part of the equation.”
Therefore, VBCSD made recommendations to the Government on four pivotal areas for EEW in Vietnam, namely education, employment, business and property.
In education, first of all, it is important to define key areas and institutions to create a “certain criterion for women.” This will ensure the engagement rate of women in engineering, mechanical engineering and executive fields. Secondly, information technology will be a more successful field if more women are engaged in it. Besides, this job can be done at home. Therefore, the Government should support and establish a working group where the Government, the World Bank (WB) and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) will move towards an action plan. Thirdly, to boost business and executive capacity building for women, Vietnam should refer to the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Initiative Programme. In this programme, universities in Europe and the US cooperate with business schools in developing countries to improve executive quality and capacity of women. The Ministry of Education and Training and VCCI need to establish a working group constituted by speakers and counsellors to coordinate with universities, education establishments and businesses to develop and implement a women’s leadership capacity building programme.
In employment,VBCSD suggested that the Government consider applying tax exemptions for women raising children aged 12-24 months and income tax reductions for women feeding children aged 24-36 months to encourage their regular participation in the workforce. Listed companies and high-revenue companies need to have or encourage at least one executive position held by a woman.
In addition, women and men should have the same retirement age. It not only helps increase productivity, but also provides a better opportunity for women to hold key positions in their companies.
In business, VBCSD recommended that the Government encourage banks, especially State-owned big banks, to apply priority policies for women entrepreneurs. They should have “specialised divisions” for women entrepreneurs to better support them to apply for bank loans. The Government of Vietnam also should consider assisting the Vietnam Women's Union to establish "Women's Savings Bank" dedicated to provide prioritised financial services for women. Companies with more than 40 per cent of women in their workforce will be financially prioritised.
In property rights and savings of women, to encourage women to co-own properties, the Government should have financial incentives by rewarding women when they register property in the name or under the name of wife or husband and wife. Incentives may come in the form of tax cuts on property sales.
VBCSD said these models have been very successful in many countries such as Turkey, Nigeria and India.
Hoang Sang
Vietnamese
