Firms demand safety net

The latest Ho Chi Minh City Business Association survey on 800 city-based businesses showed that 92 per cent of firms wanted government tax break policies, 81 per cent said current high corporate income tax rate and exorbitantly high fees and charges have undermined their competitiveness and 68 per cent voiced dissatisfaction upon inconsistent legal system.  

“Survey outcomes have upset me,” said the association deputy chairman Pham Ngoc Hung.

Nam Thai Son Import Export director Tran Viet Anh said many firms in the plastics industry have inked export contracts until June 2013, mainly with partners coming from Southeast Asia, but they were starved of capital. So that, many of them had yet to buy sufficient materials to handle these contracts.

“No businesses dare to take on bank loans with high lending rates. Preferential credit policy to export firms has proven crucial to better current situation,” said Anh.

General director of well-known processed food producer Vissan Van Duc Muoi assumed a suitable supportive mechanism was needed to help firms get out of the woods.

“Resolution 02/NQ-CP tackling difficulties in production-business, support market and clear bad debts has yet to be brought into life,” said Muoi, adding that the tolerance of small businesses abated after a long period sustaining hardships and many would incur temporary cessations of operation.

City-based Binh Chanh District Business Association figures show that of its more than 100 corporate members, only 60 firms kept operating, mostly in garment and handicraft production.

At the city’s diverse workshops and meetings, leading industry experts had spoken out wide-ranging measures to help firm unclog difficulties.

“Most urgent now is the government and the city authorities temporarily delaying enactment of new sorts of fees and tax firms and people due to be paid and not requiring firms to pay value added tax to their unsold stock, paving the way for them to reduce prices for recouping capital and reinvesting into production,” according to the Ho Chi Minh City Business Association.