Speaking at the opening ceremony, PM. Pham Minh Chinh shared that since the 4th outbreak by pandemic until now, hes has had many meetings with the domestic business community and FDI enterprises. Accordingly, the proposals of businesses are considered by the Government to respond in the best possible way.
Given that the economy is facing many difficulties due to objective causes from the pandemic which are common difficulties of many countries around the world. However, the Prime Minister affirmed that we should not be pessimistic, confused and afraid because of difficulties.
He also conveyed thanks from the leader board of gorvernment all business community have accompanied to prevent and control and socio-economic development during the past 2 pandemic years. “Thanks is not enough, we need to have concrete actions to show the affection to enterprises” the P.M said.
After a fierce and determined time with change in strategy, Vietnam is taking effectively steps to control pandemic in red areas such as Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Long An...
In the coming time, the Government will continue to develop a safe and flexible adaptation scenario to effectively control pandemic together with building a project of amending some law rules to reduce difficulties for enterprises.
The conference focused on discussing good solutions to find ways to adapt safely, flexibly and effectively control to both successfully fight pandemic and recovery as well as develop the economy.
Mr. Pham Tan Cong - Chairman of VCCI said that only in the first 8 months of this year, the whole country had over 85,000 enterprises which are over 10% of enterprises nationwide had to withdraw from the market and on average that are over 10,000 enterprises per month with an increase of more than 24% over the same period in 2020. “The 4th outbreak in Vietnam is happening very serious and complicated that we can't return to “Zero COVID” status, so if social distancing continues, our economy will collapse,” VCCI chairman affirmed. Therefore, it is necessary to change the response strategy to pandemic instead of putting all our efforts into fighting the pandemic then from now on, we need to focus on maintaining and developing the economy.
VCCI has suggested to consider changing the name "Steering Committee for pandemic Prevention" became the "Steering Committee for pandemic Prevention and Economic Recovery". This will promote to consider maintaining production and economic recovery as an important and urgent task for all enterprises. Mr. Cong also suggested that in the structure of the Steering Committee, there should be the participation of representatives of the business community. For example, the lack of consistency in some localities cause many backlogs of complicated procedures, which are not realistic in terms of conditions for accessing policies. Therefore, the rate of enterprises receiving tax support and preferential loans under Decree 105 is still low. On that basis, The P.M. assigned the Ministry of Health to urgently study some opinions from the business community to quickly issue guidance on return route to new normal and roll out operations for economy and society while ensuring safety against pandemic to create favorable conditions for businesses organize production and business at the earliest.
Recommendations of the business community
Most representatives of tourism enterprises said that tourism is the industry that has been directly and severely affected by the pandemic in the past 2 years. From the beginning of the year until now, tourism businesses have only been in business for 3 months with thanks to domestic customers. Hotels, restaurants, travel and transportation services had almost 100% closed. They also suggested that it should be applied soon regulations on "green cards, yellow cards" and the Government and the Steering Committee for pandemic prevention need to confirm that "green cards" can be used for domestic circulation and there should be no barriers between provinces to open up the flow of transportation and transport to recover tourism.
In the petition to the Prime Minister, Mr. Vu Duc Giang - Chairman of Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS) said that many regulations in the draft guidance on "Accommodating safely with the pandemic" have not yet mentioned the orientation to live with pandemic and this can have a serious impact on the economy. Accordingly, Mr. Giang suggested that the government should open the door for enterprises that already have employees injected 1-2 doses and the Ministry of Health should as well issue guidelines Quick self-test for employees with the condition that enterprises must take responsibility for disease control by their own. At the same time, the Government needs to ensure that traffic is still loaded throughout the country from central to local in order to avoid bottlenecks in the prevention and treatment of infected people and it should go hand in hand with economic development. "At present, many textile and garment enterprises are exhausted so if the economy is not opened in time, most enterprises will not be able to hold out any longer," said Mr. Giang. Previously on September 25th, VITAS and 7 other associations sent dispatch commenting on draft guidelines of "Safely adapting to pandemic" clearly demonstrates the above points.
Regarding the field of real estate, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hiep – Chairman of Vietnam Association of Construction Contractors (VACC) proposed to the Prime Minister to assign the Ministry of Construction to guide the application of provisions on force majeure conditions to contracts delivery and receipt of contracts performed during the time of social distancing according to Directive 16. Besides, he also proposed to allocate compulsory pandemic prevention costs, the cost of temporarily suspending construction and waiting for work, expenses for rapid disease inspection for officials and workers... in construction investment costs. In addition, the VACC also believes that there should be specific guidelines on conditions for works to continue during the implementation of Directive 16 which works must be halted.
Also at this conference, VCCI proposed the competent authority to adjust the time limit for applying measures to support businesses until the end of June 2022 and reduce value added tax (VAT) for different types of services. services such as tourism, restaurants, hotels, transportation, movie screenings, etc., from 30% to 50% to create a larger impact and a stronger rebound for industries that are heavily affected by the pandemic.
In the past time, many businesses have also reflected on the difficulties caused by the pandemic, especially the period when they had to strictly comply with Directive 16 on social distancing. Thereby, causing the fixed costs in the business to be consumed, but there is no source of income to compensate. Although there are policies to support taxes, fees, and postponement of bank debt structure, businesses still need hot cash flow to cover expenses. Not only that, the amount of money businesses have to spend on pandemic prevention is very large. Therefore, VCCI proposes to additionally use the State budget to support the costs of disease prevention for businesses that make the best efforts, in implementing the Government's policy on maintaining dual goals, by deducted in the next budget payments.
