Small firms need more support
Small firms need more support
The Government should review its support and preferences for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as they didn't appear to be having the required effect, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has said.
Policies to support SMEs included preferential encouragement in finance terms, credit, production, market expansion, promotion, management, information and advice.
Ministries, localities and international donors also provided businesses development programmes, the Department of Business Development said, adding that the preferences, however, had not been effective.
A General Statistics Office survey in April showed that 90 per cent of more than 10,000 businesses surveyed had not been able to access preferential loans.
In a department survey, more than 60 per cent of SMEs did not know about support policies for technology renovation while 35.5 per cent knew of the policies but not in detail.
The department said one of the reasons was that there was no committee responsible for implementing the policies.
Deputy Minister Dang Huy Dong agreed policies had not met SME requirements.
Le Minh Hien, head of northern Hai Duong Province's Business Registration Office, said SMEs needed better legal frameworks and administrative reforms, not money.
Nguyen Ngoc Han, director of northern Yen Bai Province's Department of Planning and Investment agreed. He said businesses wanted mechanisms and administrative procedures to accelerate their projects.
Han said authorities should acknowledge the real needs of enterprises to provide effective support in the context of a limited State budget.
The ministry said the country had 375,000 businesses of which 97.5 per cent were SMEs.
The businesses had seen rapid development since 2000 when the Law on Business came into effect.
SMEs are providing jobs to 5 million labourers, 5.2 times higher than 10 years ago. Their turnover had increased 17.2 times in 10 years.
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