National Assembly Vice Chairman Nguyen Duc Hai (in the middle) and the National Assembly Delegation working at VCCI - Photo: VGP/HT

Enterprises do not have access to many supports’ programs

Vice Chairman of VCCI Hoang Quang Phong said that in the process of recovering production and business activities after the COVID-19 pandemic, most businesses faced difficulties, the biggest being a lack of capital flow while accessing sources of credit capital is limited. Specifically, a survey by VCCI shows that up to 47% of businesses have difficulty accessing capital, of which 4% have to mobilize capital from other credit sources.

Currently, in order to access credit capital from commercial banks, businesses must have collateral. This is the most difficult condition to meet, when businesses have just experienced two difficult years due to the epidemic. Even with 2% interest rate support as prescribed in Decree 31/2022/ND-CP, many businesses are still very difficult to access. More worryingly, lending rates are likely to rise higher when deposit rates are increasing.

High input costs are also one of the big difficulties of enterprises. Accordingly, from the beginning of the year until now, input materials for production and business activities have increased rapidly, causing business costs of enterprises to increase. Although the Government has drastically issued many solutions to curb inflation and reduce the prices of gasoline and oil - raw materials for many manufacturing industries, but so far, the situation of input material prices in some industries has not shown any signs of decrease.

According to the survey results of the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) 2021, one of the difficulties that enterprises reflect is accessing and expanding production and business premises. The reason comes from the complexity of administrative procedures for land lease and transfer (42.5%), local land planning has not met the development needs of enterprises (39.3%), the provision of land data is not favorable and the locality "lack of clean land fund". On the other hand, enterprises are also frustrated because of the slow ground clearance, the unfavorable provision of land information and data, and the longer processing of land records. The troubles related to land procedures are the reason why 53.8% of enterprises have to delay or cancel their business plans.

Proposing solutions to remove bottlenecks

At the meeting, Mr. Pham Tan Cong, Chairman of VCCI said, in the process of recovering, developing production and business over the past time, enterprises continue to reflect on the difficulty of receiving support from policies. Supporting businesses to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, there are still conflicts and overlaps between a number of legal documents on business investment, creating "bottlenecks" for investment activities.

In order to continue to facilitate the recovery and development of enterprises in the last months of 2022 and in 2023, VCCI recommends 8 major solutions to be implemented.

Firstly, it is necessary to focus on perfecting the legal framework on business investment, minimizing conflicts and overlapping between a number of legal documents on business investment, creating "bottlenecks" for investment activities. Currently, a number of important draft laws affecting business investment activities in our country are being drafted, such as the Law on Land, the Law on Bidding, the Law on Housing, and the Law on Real Estate Business. This is a good opportunity to look at the business legal system as a whole, to overcome the existing contradictions and overlaps in the current law, as well as an opportunity to listen to the opinions of enterprises - beneficiaries, policy implementation. The process of developing the drafts needs to continue to consult widely and openly with the business community, receive and explain the comments that need to be transparent to create confidence for the business community.

Secondly, it is necessary to continue to have solutions to reduce costs for businesses, enhance access to the State's support packages, such as making plans to reduce value-added tax and special consumption tax on gasoline, continue to research to reduce the preferential tax rate for gasoline import tax...

Thirdly, improve the efficiency of implementing policies to support recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic for businesses. The situation of enterprises calling for difficulty when accessing preferential loans shows that the conditions to borrow capital do not seem to be suitable for enterprises, especially small and micro enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures to remove obstacles in terms of accessing preferential loans of enterprises so that policies to support enterprises' recovery are really effective.

Fourthly, there should be timely solutions to support a number of industries that are recovering strongly, such as tourism and services, which are currently facing difficulties in terms of human shortage. Therefore, the National Assembly can implement programs to monitor the implementation of vocational training programs and improve the quality of human resources in the coming time.

Fifthly, build and complete the legal framework to facilitate the birth and development of business models based on innovation and creativity. Having an appropriate mechanism to encourage enterprises to invest in innovative and creative activities, while balancing and harmonizing the interests of all parties in the economy towards sustainable development.

Sixthly, it is necessary to step up the program to improve the business environment and improve national competitiveness, with a focus on reforming administrative procedures, business conditions, and cutting costs for businesses. Focusing on reforming a number of administrative procedures that have a great impact on businesses and still have many troubles according to enterprises' reflections, such as land, tax, social insurance, construction, market management, and transportation. communication, fire prevention, environment, treasury and labor...

Seventhly, it is necessary to improve the ability to take advantage of FTA tariff preferences, and to open up policies related to rules of origin. Vietnam currently has 15 FTAs in effect, in which there are many advantaged markets when Vietnam's main competitors do not have FTAs.

Eighthly, it is necessary to further improve the enforcement efficiency of the government apparatus at all levels. There should be solutions to check the implementation process, pay attention to improving the enforcement efficiency of ministries, branches and local authorities...

National Assembly Vice Chairman Nguyen Duc Hai said: "In the coming time, the National Assembly will consider a lot of important law projects that have great impacts on people and businesses, such as the Land Law, the Law on Bidding, and the Law on Bidding. Price, Law on Real Estate Business, Law on Housing... In order for the revised laws to meet the requirements of reality, the National Assembly's agencies need to get multi-dimensional information from different people and organizations. This is one of the most useful sources of practical information for both ministries and branches of the Government, as well as agencies of the National Assembly, the National Assembly is also continuing to promote the supervision of the implementation of the laws, the promulgation of guiding documents".

Leaders of the National Assembly noted the exchange of achievements, difficulties, problems and issues of concern of enterprises in 2022, focusing on the business-investment environment, building a legal system. This is very important and useful information, helping the National Assembly to consider and evaluate the socio-economic situation in 2022, and develop the socio-economic development plan in 2023 at the next 4 Inđis; at the same time, the agencies of the National Assembly record the information, better serve the law-making work.

Assessments by enterprises as well as by VCCI on solutions implemented by the Government, ministries and sectors to support and overcome difficulties after the COVID-19 epidemic; at the same time, proposals and recommendations to the National Assembly, the Government, ministries and branches in the implementation of support solutions are extremely necessary.