According to a survey conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), 23.8 percent of Vietnamese enterprises export their products; 13.7 percent have the capacity to export; and 52.5 percent have no capacity to export. This shows that the production and business as well as competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises are not good. Enterprises have not made use of available resources to take advantage of international cooperation. Increasing the competitiveness of commodities and services is an urgent issue. Many Vietnamese enterprises have not fully prepared for forthcoming integration.

With full awareness of this issue, the X National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam stressed that the strong and highly competitive establishment and development of the enterprise system in Vietnam was a strategic task of the state and society. The state orients and creates favourable conditions for enterprises to operate effectively and develop in line with the market mechanism. Economists have said that the state needs to make plans for the rearrangement and support of enterprises involving the following:

1. Expanding research on the competitiveness of each sector to allocate investment capital effectively. Investment must be allocated to sectors which can maintain competiveness internationally and sectors with comparative advantages such as cheap labour or readily available natural resources. These sectors are capable of facing challenges during integration. After selecting such entities, the state must continue to adjust, supplement strategies and develop sectors in line with each locality. At the same time, the state must also create favourable technical and legal conditions for enterprises to increase their internal strengths and capacities to adapt to international competition.

2. Continuing to accelerate arrangement, renovation, development and improvement of operation effectiveness and transferal of ownership of state-run enterprises; improving efficiency of corporations as well as hastening equitisation of state-run enterprises.

3. Helping enterprises to build their own trademarks. Currently, the building and protecting of trademarks of Vietnamese enterprises remains undeveloped, especially in foreign markets. Businesses need strong support from the state to register and protect trademarks effectively, especially trademark registration in overseas markets. Accordingly, to fully prepare for accession to the WTO, the state must build a more adequate and streamlined legal framework on trademarks and actively participate in international conventions and agreements on trademarks.

4. Intensifying trade promotion between businesses. Over the past years, Vietnam has made progress in trade promotion but the experiences and market knowledge of enterprises remains low, which has created obstacles and setbacks as well as hindered cooperation with seasoned partners. Vietnamese ministries, departments and especially diplomatic and representative agencies overseas must more actively provide information about laws, markets, predilections, and the requirements for quality and technical standards of imported products by state-run businesses. In addition, Vietnamese representative agencies overseas need to promote cooperation with enterprises to organise advertising campaigns and exhibitions. Moreover, export associations also need to be established and developed. These associations not only support each other in exporting, raising the competitiveness of goods and Vietnamese businesses but also make contributions to resolving cases and trade disputes with overseas partners.

Source: www.cpv.org.vn