Tran Thanh Hai, Deputy Director of the Import-Export Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said it is necessary to have feasible solutions to restore production during the pandemic.

Tran Thanh Hai, Deputy Director of the Import-Export Department
(Ministry of Industry and Trade).

Recently, the "three on the spot" option has been successfully applied in Bac Ninh and Bac Giang, but when it was deployed in 19 southern provinces and cities, including HCM City, it encountered many shortcomings. What do you think about this?

The number of enterprises as well as workers in the southern provinces is much higher than that of Bac Ninh and Bac Giang, while the pandemic has spread before the application of "three on the spot". In addition to the cost issue of setting up the "three on-site" option, this option cannot guarantee 100% retention of workers.

As the pandemic has spread in the surrounding community, businesses are always in a state of threat of an outbreak, and then the cost to handle the outbreak is even more expensive. Therefore, some firms after applying "three on the spot" also had to stop and agree to close the factory. The owner of a wood business in Long An said if the firm tries to maintain production according to "three on-site", but lacks the supply of raw materials from closed businesses, the firm cannot complete the final product.

Can you share more about the consequences of businesses having to suspend production, especially the impact on exports of Vietnamese goods?

Without production, there are no goods for domestic circulation and export. If firms stop production, import shipments will not be received or handled, causing congestion at ports. Meanwhile, road transport has been removed, but there are many difficulties at each point and station due to the enforcement force.

An electronic firm said that if they stop productions a week, it will take at least two to three weeks to recover. Firms have stopped production for five weeks; it will still take three to four months to recover as they can before the pandemic. But up to this point, it is not known when businesses will be able to reopen because HCM City continues to implement Directive 16.

If looking at the number of exports, 19 southern provinces and cities are implementing the social distancing according to Directive 16, accounting for 45% of the country's export turnover. With export value in the first six months of 2021 reaching US$ 71 billion, the average daily export value of this region is $390 million, equivalent to VND 9,000 billion. Although not all firms in this region have stopped production, some firms are continuing to export previously produced goods, but the above figure partly shows the impact of the pandemic on the economy if production has not been restored

How should solutions be implemented to help firms step by step overcome difficulties and restore production activities in the context of the pandemic?

In Official Letter No. 4769 dated August 6, 2021 to the Ministry of Health, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien proposed several solutions to bring businesses back to operation. Specifically, in addition to regulations on the form of "three on-site", "one road, two locations", other forms of production maintenance should be added for firms.

In addition, guiding localities to develop production recovery scenarios and roadmaps corresponding to the development scenarios of the pandemic so that firms have appropriate production layout plans; supplementing the process of health authorities to coordinate with firms to separate F0 and F1 from the working environment so that firms can soon stabilise production and ensure the safety of other workers; supplementing regulations on periodical pooled testing and direct sampling at firms to cut costs and time for firms.

In addition, specifying necessary conditions to allow firms to resume operation in accordance with different scenarios (operating 30%, 50%, and 70% up to 100% of capacity as before disease outbreak) depending on the safety conditions of firms and the results of disease prevention and control. When localities decide to suspend large-scale production activities within the entire industrial zone or cluster in the area, must report to the Government's Special Working Group and the Head of the National Steering Committee for Epidemic Prevention and Control Covid-19 for decision.

These proposals are quite comprehensive and close to the current reality to limit supply chain disruptions, step by step to help enterprises quickly reopen. However, in Document No. 6565 dated 12/8/2021 updating guidance on pandemic prevention at labor, production and business establishments, the Ministry of Health has not issued regulations guiding the above contents.

The fight against the pandemic is given a higher priority at the moment, but in the long term, it is impossible not to take into account measures to maintain people's livelihood. Considering when to reopen for production, how to apply the form of both production and anti-pandemic is what businesses are looking forward to.

To realise the idea of ​​creating a "green zone" for production, firms should be allowed to have the majority of workers who have been vaccinated, meet the requirements of distance in production, and fully equip themselves is allowed to resume operation, no requirement for " three on-site " or "one route, two places".