Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired an online conference between the Government and representatives from enterprises, business associations and localities nationwide on solutions to remove difficulties and promote production and business activities of enterprises in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that, within the scope and authority, the Government and the Prime Minister have been researching and promulgating many proactive, creative, drastic and flexible solutions, mobilizing all resources to prevent and repel the pandemic and maintain production in safe and secure places. As a result, the socio-economy in the first seven months of the year still achieved many positive results.

According to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the current context requires great requirements and tasks for the Government, ministries and localities. We need to take drastic, timely and effective anti-pandemic measures to protect health and life, as well as stabilize the people's lives. At the same time, we need to maintain and restore production and business activities of enterprises, making our best efforts to not disrupt production and supply chains.

According to Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung, through direct and indirect information exchange channels with the business community, we have identified eight groups of difficult problems that businesses are currently facing.

Firstly, aggregate demand dropped sharply, causing orders, contracts, and output to decrease. The average demand in the industries decreased by 40-50%, the heaviest was the aviation, passenger transport, tourism, restaurant and hotel industries as the demand was reduced by 70-80%.

The congestion of goods at some important seaports such as Cat Lai, Cai Mep - Thi Vai was due to the pandemic rather than infrastructure or traffic management.

Demand decreased, enterprises reduced output and production scale, so imported materials could not be put into production, so temporarily used port warehouses for enterprises.

Enterprises said that the conditions of some policies are still quite tight, making
it difficult for the beneficiaries to support, not covering all situations arising in reality.
Photo: H. Diu.

Secondly, revenue fell sharply. In which, the tourism industry does not generate revenue; restaurants and hotels have been paralyzed since April 2021, the revenue of the aviation industry has decreased by an average of 61% compared to 2019, the peak pandemic in early 2021 decreased by 80% compared to the same period last year.

Thirdly, the cash flow is short, making it very difficult for enterprises to cover expenses to maintain production and business activities such as expenses for employees (salary payment, social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance). In addition, businesses still have to pay rent for premises, shops and factories while they have to suspend operations.

Due to a lack of cash flow, most businesses can hardly manage to pay interest on bank loans on time, leading to bad debts, overdue debts, and difficulty in accessing new loans.

Fourth, input costs and transportation costs are increasing day by day, leading to shortages of raw materials and input materials, making production costs rise. There is a serious shortage of empty containers, the rental price of containers increases by 5-10 times, the cost of logistics transportation increases from 2-4 times, sometimes up to 5 times compared to before the pandemic.

Many new expenses have arisen related to pandemic prevention and control such as: testing costs; spending on equipment investment to meet the conditions of disease safety control at enterprises.

Fifth, the supply chain of production, consumption and export is disrupted and stalled locally. Many affected manufacturing and exporting enterprises have to delay or cancel orders, if the outbreak lasts for a long time, they may lose the market because customers change the supply chain.

Sixth, goods circulation faced difficulties, including domestic circulation, among some provinces and cities due to unreasonable application of pandemic prevention and control policies. As a result, enterprises are delayed in delivery/import, storage costs and transportation charges increase, and production and business situation is stalled.

Seventh, difficulties in labor and experts: In order to withstand the pandemic, many enterprises have to downsize and reduce their workforce. This will make it very difficult for enterprises to find labor again when production is restored after the pandemic, especially for occupations that require certain skilled and specialized workers such as mechanics and electronics. Enterprises, especially FDI enterprises, face many difficulties with the issue of entry and work permits for foreign experts.

Eighth, difficulties in accessing support policies of the State. Enterprises said that the conditions of some policies are still quite tight, making it difficult for the beneficiaries to support, not covering all situations arising in reality, the enforcement work is sometimes not active and flexible.

According to Minister Nguyen Chi Dung, notable points in the recommendations of businesses is the simplification of procedures, ensuring transparency, clarity and consistency in the implementation of regulations and policies on pandemic prevention and control nationwide; fairness and attitude of serving side by side with enterprises of the enforcement staff. This is what businesses expect most from government agencies rather than monetary support.