Gov’t pushes women-run business start-up

Deputy PM Vuong Dinh Hue (L) shakes hands wih a delegate at the forum on empowering economically women to launch business start-up and agriculture production in favor of gender equality, Ha Noi, December 26, 2016 - Photo: VGP/Thanh Chung

Deputy PM Hue underlined the point on Monday in Ha Noi at a forum on empowering economically women to launch business start-up and agriculture production in favor of gender equality.

The event was jointly hosted by the Viet Nam Women's Union and the Embassy of the Netherlands.

String of business start-up policies

Addressing the forum, Deputy PM Hue praised the operation of the Association and its cooperation with the Netherlands Embassy to host the event in favor of business development and gender equality.

Especially, a project on “Supporting female business start-up in the 2017-2027 period” would be optimistic as over 110,000 firms were founded in 2016 and the number of resumed businesses surged over 43% in 2016.

The Deputy PM said the Government looks to listen to comments with a view to assessing the economic regulations and pushing business start-up in general and those run by women in particular.

The Deputy PM also revealed that the Government had already submitted a draft law on supporting SMEs to the National Assembly in an effort to composing pro-SMEs programs, especially micro and difficult enterprises in accessing credit, capital, labor, and input factors without the State’s assistance.

However, the Government only backs winning enterprises, not weak ones, he affirmed.

In addition, the Cabinet will support start-up and creative businesses which are eager for technology and IT applications.

Moreover, household businesses will be encouraged to convert into businesses.

The Government will amend economic regulations to attractive more investment into agricultural sector.

Thus, Deputy PM Hue suggested the Association create favorable ways for women to join the business start-up campaign and boost agricultural production.

Women to own a third of businesses

The Association reported that females accounted for nearly a half of the labor force in almost all sectors and industries.

In agriculture, women contributed remarkably to turn Viet Nam into an exporter with over ten items earning over US$ 1 billion annually.

Especially, over 100,000 enterprises (over 20% of national businesses) have been led by women. They generated over 1.63 million jobs.

President of the Viet Nam Women's Union Nguyen Thi Thu Ha announced that the Association was crafting the project on “Supporting female business start-up in the 2017-2027 period” and would submit it to the Government soon. The project set a goal that businesswomen would account for 35% of the total one million enterprises by 2020.