Businesses have never faced such difficulties as now, especially small and medium-sized enterprises are "exhausted" during the time when HCM City and some provinces and cities have implemented social distancing for months.

The easing for firms to gradually resume production and business activities
at this time is very necessary. Photo: provided by the company

Businesses need "oxygen"

As noted, a series of businesses in HCM City said that they were "failing", it was difficult to hold out after more than 3 months of distance, so it is very urgent for the city to gradually open the economy.

Tran My Huong, Director of Sales Department, Zhong Sheng Candle Co., Ltd. (Southeast Industrial Park) said that businesses are "exhausted" after organising "three on-site" for production. Not only does the cost of "three-on-site" activities increase, the company has to bear many additional costs when it has to change some partners and raw material suppliers that are not affected by the pandemic. The company is forced to accept buying production materials at higher prices and must pay immediately when placing an order.

According to Pham Xuan Hong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Saigon 3 Garment Joint Stock Company, the business is exhausted. On the other hand, quite a lot of orders for the fourth quarter need businesses to expand production, if they don't open soon, orders to be delivered will be difficult to meet. The characteristics of textiles are seasonal and this season, orders near the Lunar New Year are abundant. Therefore, if the distance continues, businesses will break the production chain and lose orders in the fourth quarter. HCM City should open early so businesses can easily plan for the fourth quarter.

According to Hong, Sai Gon 3 Garment Joint Stock Company has 80% of workers who have received the first dose of vaccine and some groups have received the second dose. Therefore, the company is ready to expand operations; the company has also prepared scenarios, restructured its financial health and planned for the best.

Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh, Deputy Director of Nguyen Thanh Manufacturing and Trading Co., Ltd., said the company supplies essential goods and medical supplies, so it has temporarily maintained operations in the past time. However, as the number of personnel was greatly reduced, leading to a decrease in sales, it is very necessary to relax so that enterprises can gradually resume production and business activities. However, the resumption of operation must have a new normal solution according to the State's pandemic prevention standards, developing pandemic prevention standards at businesses such as vaccinated workers being allowed to go to work, applying 5K.

In addition, many businesses agree that they must open up both in terms of labour to restore production. To reorganise production, huge labour resources are needed. However, the number of workers who have been displaced in the recent wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is being strictly controlled in localities, creating a disruption in resources and without this resource, the production line cannot work.

Manpower problem

According to a survey by the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), for seafood enterprises in the southern provinces, by the end of August, only 30-40% of enterprises operate "three on-site"; 30-40% have to stop working and the rest stop production to reorganise the factory to carry out "three on-site" production. The units still operating "three on-site" also mobilised only about 30-50% of the total number of employees, about 50-70% had to quit or take unpaid leave, reducing processing capacity by 50-60% from before. The overall capacity of the whole area is estimated to have decreased by 60-70%.

Employing more than 10,000 workers, Samho Vietnam Co., Ltd (Cu Chi district) also faces the risk of shortage of human resources when plans to retain employees are almost impossible to implement. Nguyen Thanh An, Chairman of the company's trade union, said that due to the difficult financial situation, from July 31, the firm had to stop paying wages to workers. Enterprises urgently apply for support up to 3.71 million VND for each employee, temporarily suspending the contract for 30 days but has been returned by the authorities to await instructions.

Chu Tien Dung, Chairman of HCM City Business Association (HUBA), suggested it is necessary to quickly and diversely deploy social security support packages so that workers can return to factories and workplaces. Employees also need to be supported with the cost of improving their professional capacity so that they can change jobs due to job loss or job change. The city continues to support businesses to set up and organise housing and accommodation for workers.

On the other hand, statistics from the Association of Industrial Park Enterprises of HCM City (HBA) show that at least 20,000 workers working in industrial zones have left the city to return to their hometown. In addition, tens of thousands of workers work in Linh Trung I, II, Hi-Tech Park (Thu Duc City), Hiep Phuoc (Nha Be district), Northwest Cu Chi (Cu Chi district) but They live in areas adjacent to HCM City such as Dong Nai, Binh Duong, and Long An, and cannot travel due to the application of pandemic prevention measures by localities.

For businesses to be able to resume operations and recover soon, in addition to financial support, policies need to speed up vaccination for workers. This is a key condition for businesses to be able to operate safely again.

Nguyen Van Be, Chairman of HBA said reopening the economy is what everyone wants, but this is not the time to implement "Zero covid-19" - completely take F0 out of the community like in 2020. Accordingly, enterprises need to accept the reality of living with the pandemic. Although herd immunity may have been achieved, there are still minority F0 cases here and there.

Currently, industrial zones in HCM City have about 250,000 workers who have had injection one over nine weeks, of which "three on-site" workers are about 60,000 people. This number is in dire need of the second injection. “If the second injection is given, the workforce in general and workers who are carrying out production under the "three on-site" option in particular will be safer. The second injection is also a solid line of defense, contributing to the approach to herd immunity to soon return production and business activities to normal," Be said.