Financial Difficulty Hinders SMEs Capacity Enhancement

According to Dr Nguyen Thi Tue Anh, this has been concretized in the "Strategy for Industrialisation of Vietnam - Japan 2020, Vision 2030". As of the 2020 landmark, the priority economic sectors of Vietnam will take the lead in the application of high technology, clean technology attached to ensure reasonable economic conditions of Vietnam and in 2030, the development of priority sectors will mainly apply high technology, clean technology, associated with reasonable assurance about Vietnam's economic conditions. In particular, the application of learning and experience sharing of applying model-public technology to support SMEs in raising Japanese technological capacity should be learned by Vietnamese SMEs.

 

Mr Ngo Minh Tuan, Deputy Head of Public Services Policy (CIEM) said that up to the present time, Japan had 600 public technology centres, among which 130 centres are operating in the industrial sector. The main task of this organisation is providing consultancy services, testing and researching the field of technology, personnel training, technology transfer to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs. This can be viewed as models for Vietnamese leaders and managers to draw the lessons apply to their business.

 

Also under this strategy, on May 16, the government issued a resolution on support and development of enterprises to 2020. The Resolution pointed out the target to build Vietnamese enterprises with competitiveness, sustainable development, with at least one million businesses in operation, including the large-scale enterprises with reliable resources by 2020. Vietnamese private sector contributes around 48-49 percent of GDP, approximately 49 percent of total social investment capital. Total factor productivity (TFP) contributed around 30-35 percent of GDP. Labour social productivity increases by about 5 percent/year. Every year, there are approximately 30-35 percent of Vietnamese enterprises having innovation activities. This economic development orientation of the Government shows that Vietnam regards the role as the economic dynamics of the business community, including SMEs as important factors.

 

However, according to Mr Tuan, although the Government placed great expectations, and in Vietnam today, there are many institutions to support SMEs at Provincial/Central level, such as the SME Support Centre, industrial extension centres, technical centre of quality measurement standards, no organisation is specialising in supporting technology transfer and development of technology for SMEs. Therefore, the construction of the model organisations operating like Public Technology Centre of Japan in Vietnam is particularly important.

 

Dr Nguyen Thi Tue Anh evaluated and compared experiences in the establishment of institutions supporting technology in SMEs in many countries in the region such as China and Thailand. It showed that China is considered one of the nations quite successful in developing supporting industries, contributing to building the production bases for exports (such as cars, motorcycles, electronics). The establishment of institutions supporting technology SMEs in Thailand has not been successful. Key practices of the countries in the region such as China and Thailand should be noted by Vietnam when implementing the plan. Because coming from the practical needs and the needs of SMEs in the development of technologies to enhance competitiveness in the context of economic integration, the establishment of institutions to support technology for SMEs is very necessary. However, due to limited fund of the local government, the implementation in many cases is helpless, leading to infeasibility. Therefore, experts, policy makers need to research and point out the most suitable model for Vietnam.