The number of domestic
enterprises has significantly grown from 63,000 in 2002 to 312,600 by
April 1, 2012, with 90 percent of them being small and medium
enterprises (SMEs). The number of workers involved with SMEs also
increased from 4.66 million in 2002 to 11 million in 2012 (an annual
average increase of about 10 percent); their total capital share in the
economy increased from 1,400 trillion in 2002 to 15,300 trillion in 2011
(an annual average increase of 30 percent); and their total revenue
increased from 1,200 trillion in 2002 to 10,700 trillion in 2011 (an
annual average increase of 27.4 percent).
According to VCCI General
Secretary Pham Thi Thu Hang, only about 300,000 of more than 700,000
SMEs registered to establish are operating in the country, which poses a
major question for local authorities to answer.
According to the Vietnam
Business Annual Report 2012, of the six industries under VCCI survey
during the 2007-2011 period including seafood processing, beverages,
metal hardware fittings manufacturing, retails, advertising, and trade
promotion, only metal hardware fittings manufacturing witnessed an
annual four percent increase in employment rate. The remaining five
industries saw unchanged or decreased employment rates, particularly,
the advertising industry saw 9.3 percent decrease annually.
The liquidity index of SMEs also
declined during the 2007-2011 period, with all surveyed SMEs being
unmet with liquidity criteria, increasingly dependent on external
sources of capital, and inefficiently utilizing capital.
Recently, smaller scale
enterprises have tended to increase along with an increase in the number
of dissolved SMEs, especially in the past year. Only 31 small and very
small scale enterprises of 1,999 SMEs participating in the survey by the
Ministry of Planning and Investment's Central Institute of Economic
Management during 2009-2011 period grew into medium-sized enterprises,
while up to 133 medium scale businesses contracted to small and very
small scale enterprises.
Although the business
environment has been improved, businesses start-up conditions seemed not
enough favorable, and the government should have more incentive for
SMEs.
According to VCCI, in addition
to income tax cuts for SMEs, the most supportive measures are mainly
applied in post-production stage, which makes SMEs less competitive to
large scale enterprises in terms of Government incentives. The majority
of SMEs cannot access short-term loans because of costs and complicated
procedures.
Therefore, policy makers need to
be more consistent with approaching to the design of mechanisms to
support SME development, especially SME start-up so as to help develop
SME community for the national economic development purposes./.
Source: VEN