Illustration photo. Although many business links have been formed, there is still no initiative from participating entities, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The trend of multidisciplinary linkages is taking place strongly in the Vietnamese business community; especially in the area of medium, small and micro enterprises.

Many multidisciplinary business communities have been built and developed, establishing connection networks between manufacturing enterprises, service providers and consumer partners, thereby, promoting the trade situation and growth rate of member businesses.

From a research perspective, Dr. Cao Đình Kiên, the Faculty of Business Administration, Foreign Trade University, said that the trend of business partnerships was becoming more and more popular in the modern economy because of the benefits it brought to the participating parties.

With the development of technology and globalisation trends, business co-operation activities are also indispensable to help businesses expand their scope and scale of operations as well as reduce costs or increase competitiveness.

In Việt Nam, the State has also introduced many policies to encourage multi-sector economic development; as well as promoting the process of international economic integration by opening the economy and actively participating in world economic organisations.

This not only creates potential and opportunities for development but is also a big challenge, requiring domestic businesses to know how to take advantage of business association activities as well as its advantages to enhance competitiveness.

Although many business links had been formed, there was still no initiative from participating entities, especially small and medium-sized enterprises - those who benefit from this activity, said Kiên.

Forms of business association in Việt Nam had also stopped at a simple level, implementing horizontal and cluster linkages to form craft villages or business associations of a certain industry, he said.

Some large enterprises associate with small enterprises and business households in the form of leasing or contracting, mostly for non-core business activities of the enterprise.

The rate of conducting business linkages for core business activities or further participation in the global value chain is not much.

This was partly due to the fact that Vietnamese economy is mostly run by households and individuals, with a high degree of spontaneity; production processes and quality were not standardised, so it was difficult for large enterprises or foreign enterprises to trust and co-operate in long-term, he added.

Therefore, in order to encourage business linkage activities, there needed co-ordination from the State, industry organisations and economic entities, said Kiên.

Accordingly, functional branches create a favourable legal framework, appropriate institutions and legal policies for different types of businesses to develop.

Professional organisations in all economic fields must play a role in communication through seminars with content related to business association activities, and at the same time, consulting and connecting to businesses find opportunities to link together and develop the industry's value chain, at home and abroad.

To do so, organisations needed financial resources and human resources with expertise to carry out the advisory role, said Kiên.

Finally, economic entities or businesses and business households are conscious of change, self-improvement and proactively seek to participate in the process of business linkages and formation of value chains.

The initiative of economic actors played a key role in the formation and operation of economic links, he noted.

To promote socio-economic benefits from business links, economic entities must proactively seek opportunities to co-operate and solve difficulties in the value chain in which their businesses operated, he added, only then could new business links operated most effectively in the market.