On the occasion of the New Year 2023, Chairman of the Vietnam Confederation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Pham Tan Cong, had an exchange with the Government Electronic Newspaper about a year with many "turbulences", at the same time. share about expectations for development in 2023.

Business based on ethics and culture for sustainable development

In the face of difficulties in 2022, how have VCCI and the business community overcome difficulties and cope with challenges?

VCCI Chairman Pham Tan Cong: 2022 is a year with many difficulties for the Vietnamese business community. Difficulties coming from both the world and domestic markets, fluctuations in the world such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, inflation, exchange rate, and local economic recession have affected Vietnam, and at the same time problems Domestic proposals such as the financial market turbulence, the stock market plunge, the capital mobilization channels faced difficulties, the cost of capital and materials and raw materials increased sharply, causing enterprises to face very large challenges.

Accompanying the business community, VCCI regularly reports to the Government on the difficult situation of enterprises to have timely solutions to remove challenges on business expenses for enterprises such as tax exemption and reduction, land rent exemption and reduction and other fees and charges. Pioneering in promoting the implementation of policies, conducting surveys, evaluating the implementation of administrative procedures and policies in practice.

VCCI regularly provides information on laws and policies for businesses, on export markets, training and supporting businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises to improve their capacity and necessary skills in business. Promote a number of new breakthrough activities such as implementing the initiative "Eastern Expressway Economic Connection" to promote regional linkages and create new development space for the business community.

2022 is also the year that many businesses and entrepreneurs face legal problems, which partly affects the entrepreneurial spirit of the business community. In that context, VCCI focuses on promoting the building of business ethics and business culture.

For the first time, VCCI has developed and published a set of 6 Vietnamese business ethics codes, launched and mobilized the business community nationwide to implement. Comprehensive renovation of honoring typical Vietnamese entrepreneurs, in which the observance of Vietnamese business ethics rules is a key group of evaluation criteria, thereby maintaining the evaluation and honoring of Sustainable Development enterprises.

Overcoming the storms of 2022, the Vietnamese business community understands more clearly the value and importance of doing business based on ethics, culture and sustainability factors.

Flexible policies help businesses overcome difficulties and gradually recover

How do you evaluate the Government's companionship, specifically fiscal and monetary policies, and the Prime Minister's directives to support businesses?

VCCI Chairman Pham Tan Cong: Although 2022 will be full of difficulties, we have basically succeeded in realizing the goal of recovery and development.

The country's economy grew by over 8%, Vietnam's GDP scale for the first time ranked 37th in the world and surpassed 400 billion USD. The Vietnamese business community continues to grow, welcoming nearly 150,000 new businesses, a new record and an increase of over 30% compared to 2021.

Import-export turnover is estimated at 732.5 billion USD, in the TOP 20 of the world, which shows the new position of Vietnam in the global economy. Having the above results has an important role for businesses, but along with that is the companionship and direction of the Government and the Prime Minister.

In the past year, the Government has closely accompanied the business community and entrepreneurs to overcome difficulties, remove challenges, and recover the economy. Fiscal and monetary policies and drastic directions of the Prime Minister to support businesses have brought many positive impacts.

First of all, the policies on tax exemption, reduction, relaxation, fees, charges and land rent have helped businesses have more resources to recover their business. This is a very important "adjuvant medicine".

Such as the adjustment of tax on gasoline is very flexible and timely. When the world oil price skyrocketed in early March 2022, the Government immediately directed the Ministry of Finance to submit a plan to cut taxes on gasoline. Right at the end of March, the environmental protection tax on gasoline was cut in half, and in July it continued to decrease to the floor level. Import tax, excise tax and value added tax have also been moved to a mode ready to cut if there are new developments.

The business community is very impressed with the drastic direction of the Prime Minister in a number of hot areas in the past year such as disbursement of public investment, solving difficulties for the real estate market, capital market, and finance, the labor market. The timely decisions and direction of the head of the Government in the past year have created positive changes and greatly supported business people.

2022 is also a stressful year for monetary policy makers. The fact that the US will raise interest rates has put great pressure on the exchange rate and monetary policy of Vietnam, besides, the fear of inflation after the COVID-19 epidemic still exists and especially the risks of the bond market. 

Facing that situation, monetary policy was operated in the direction of initial caution in order to maintain the market's confidence.

Restore business confidence and spirit in 2023

In your opinion, what policies should continue to be improved, so that enterprises can develop better in the coming time? What would you like to share about the company's expectations in 2023?

VCCI Chairman Pham Tan Cong: Entering 2023, although the general situation is still difficult, Vietnamese enterprises will enjoy a number of favorable conditions as well as face many particularly great opportunities: Consumer demand in The country's strong recovery is forecasted to be a favorable boost for businesses; State budget revenue is quite high in 2022, leading to the expectation that the implementation of support packages will take place faster in 2023, thereby contributing to supporting business and production recovery activities of enterprises. The Government's determination to speed up the public investment support package for infrastructure could also trigger some business sectors to perform better in 2023.

In particular, 15 free trade agreements have come into force with a total of 53 trading partners in 4 continents, which will create a competitive advantage for businesses so that they can continue to maintain and expand their market share in other countries market.

China's cancellation of the "Zero Covid" policy, reopening its borders from the beginning of 2023 will reduce stress on supply chain disruptions and be a great opportunity for many key export products of China. Vietnam exports officially to this market. At the same time, the trend of recovery and supply chain shift in favor of Vietnam will create many great opportunities for businesses to grow rapidly in 2023.

Regarding the expectations of enterprises in 2023, in addition to the expectation of the Government's flexible, timely and effective policy administration, especially in stabilizing the macro-economy and controlling inflation, the business community also expect that the Government will have policy solutions to create a business environment that is not only favorable but also safe, thereby restoring confidence and business climate for entrepreneurs and businesses.

Resolutely protect and "nurture" genuine businesses, best protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises. In particular, it is necessary to well implement the policy of not criminalizing civil and economic relations. At the same time, implementing many solutions to reassure businesses and encourage them to devote themselves to national development. Thereby, building Vietnam as a safe and reliable destination for investors.

Reforming capital and financial markets should be the focus of the Government's policies in 2023. We believe that there is nothing better than improving the fundamental elements of the market such as information transparency, minority shareholder protection, anti-fraud, fraud, insider trading, strengthening coefficients. banking safety, anti-cross-ownership, public debt reduction...

Vietnam's national credit rating in 2022 reached the highest level in history, but when we look back over the past 25 years, we have only increased one level on the scale of international organizations. Therefore, steadfastly improving the financial market will help lower the interest rate of the dong, thereby increasing the competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises in the international market.

Infrastructure investment is improving and we expect the Government to continue to push this forward. It is necessary to soon issue the power plan VIII and implement major traffic projects such as the North-South expressway, Long Thanh airport, and focus on investing in the southern economic region to overcome the state of degraded infrastructure in this area. We believe that there is no shortage of private capital to invest in infrastructure and industrial projects, and it is important to stabilize policies so that businesses can rest assured to invest.

Finally, the issue of business environment reform has shown signs of slowing down in the years affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. Many ministries and departments still have programs to simplify procedures and improve the business environment, but only with minor modifications, without many revolutionaries, substantive changes.

We believe that modernizing telecommunications infrastructure, providing online public services and opening national databases will be important keys to economic development in the new year.

It is expected that there will be strong changes from the drastic, accompanying businesses of the Government and all levels of government, so that 2023 is recorded as a year of recovery and development for enterprises in both business activities and market confidence.