At the forum " Vietnam Business Development 2018" by the Journal of Economics and Forecasting in cooperation with the Institute for Brand and Competitiveness Strategy held in Hanoi on 19/6, economic experts have the same consideration: Vietnam's target of 1 million businesses by 2020 is difficult to achieve.

Economic experts said that the target of 1 million enterprises by 2020 set by the Government is difficult to implement because both the pressure on time and the speed of reform in Vietnam now do not allow that.

The main reason is that both the time pressure (there is not much time left from now to 2020) and especially the speed and scope of reform in Vietnam are still slow, not really create the environment for enterprises to develop sustainably.

Speaking at the forum, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, former member of the Economic Advisory Group of the Government, Director of the Institute for Brand and Competitiveness Strategy, said that the target of 1 million enterprises by 2020 that the Government set out is hard to be workable.

 “I think the target of 1 million businesses by 2020 is difficult to implement. Because the situation in the past years both in the business investment environment and the reforms to unbind the business, although we have said a lot, has no significant change.

In addition, there is not much time left from now to 2020, especially in the first 6 months of the year, there are so many businesses have stopped working for various reasons. " Dr. Vo Tri Thanh said

TS Võ Trí Thành đặt vấn đề: “Chính phủ và các bộ ban ngành các cấp rất rốt ráo, có những động tác chỉ đạo rất tích cực, vậy mà các chỉ số như năng lực cạnh tranh của doanh nghiệp lại không thể lên được".

Dr. Vo Tri Thanh queried: “The government and ministries at all levels are very active, with very positive directions, however the indicators such as the competitiveness of enterprises can not increase.

Then from last year til now, every time we talk about economics, about the business is talk to innovate, so how far has the enterprises innovated?”  Dr. Vo Tri Thanh raised the question.

Dr Tran Thi Hong Minh, Director of the Business Registration Management Department (the Ministry of Planning and Investment), said that in the past three years, Vietnamese enterprises still have bright spots as the number of newly registered enterprises continues to increase, high export rates, investment environment is improved ...

However, Dr. Tran Thi Hong Minh said that to achieve the goals set by the Government, more efforts should be made. “In fact, in the past 3 years, the government has given out many policies and guidelines to unbind the business, but the business environment needs to be improved more to meet the realities of business development. " said Dr. Minh.

 “In 2017 there are 127,000 new registered enterprises, so far 87% of them are still working, so I think that improving the conditions and business environment for enterprises to operate effectively is very important.” according to Dr. Minh

Meanwhile, Mr. Phan Duc Hieu, Deputy director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), said that although the Prime Minister had directly directed, the process of unbinding the enterprises, such as deleting business conditions, the sub-license in the Ministry, is still slow.

"Up to now, only the Ministry of Industry and Trade has completed the abolition of business conditions, while other ministries have not changed much, even some haven’t done anything. When deleting business conditions, it also involves the amendment of the law with the biggest challenge is time, so I think it is very difficult to implement, "said Mr. Hieu.

About the solution, according to Mr. Hieu, to create momentum for business development is nothing more than to forward reform. "There are two kinds of reforms in the world: one is from the bottom-up, that is the urgent need of reality; the second is the reform from the top, which means to create internal pressure, from the head of government, " Mr. Hieu said.

He also shared that in recent years, the Prime Minister's working team has been very active, but has not been able to make a real breakthrough.

Adding the opinion of Mr. Phan Duc Hieu, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh said that for the Prime Minister's working group to be really effective, the working team must be truly independent and must contain the best economists.

“Successful working team must have all three characteristics: independent, professional and an overall vision of the economy rather than the representative or under pressure of any group.” Dr. Thanh said