The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous impacts on Ho Chi Minh City in particular and Vietnam in general. 

As many as 670,000 employees lost their jobs in the first four months of 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis, according to the Department of Employment under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Management agencies have put in place drastic steps in a bid to support businesses as they actively seek out sources of raw materials to be used in production whilst boosting trade promotion activities.

Seventy-eight per cent of surveyed enterprises expressed satisfaction with tax administrative reforms this year, up 3 per cent compared to 2016.

The national steering committee on food safety has set up six inspection teams to check food safety and hygiene for the coming Tet (Lunar New Year) festival.

Experts are once again warning that if the monopoly of the economy via poorly-performing and loss-making enterprises owned by the state continues, the country’s competitiveness and investment climate will continue being affected as a result. 

Pham Hong Thai, Head of the General Department for Market Development and Business, speaks to the newspaper Viet Nam Economic Times on the need to have a close link between scientists and enterprises.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Authorities will step up checks on the use of software at enterprises in a bid to crack down on software piracy.

 VietNamNet Bridge – As of the end of October, nearly 834,400 enterprises have legally registered to do business in Vietnam and 96% of them are ‘mom and pops’

VietNamNet Bridge – About 700 enterprises were fined more than VND1.4 trillion (US$68.6 million) last year for measuring and radiation safety violations, the Ministry of Science and Technology has reported.

 The total number of dissolved and bankrupt businesses was higher than that of newly established firms in the first eight months of the year.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Enterprises need Government support to restore production and develop, To Hoai Nam, vice chairman of the Viet Nam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, told Hai quan (Customs) newspaper.

VietNamNet Bridge – The minimum salary by region will be revised based on the country’s consumer price index from 2018 as planned,

VietNamNet Bridge – Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has required that the tax sector cut the time for enterprises to complete tax paperwork to under 300 hours a year by the end of 2014.  

 VietNamNet Bridge – Most enterprises operating in Viet Nam were optimistic about the economic recovery, saying business was bouncing back this year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

VietNamNet Bridge – A new generation of Vietnamese entrepreneurs show they are willing to take the risk of dropping everything else to focus on the opportunities they have spotted, and to work hard to succeed. 

 VietNamNet Bridge – Though the macro economy has improved, the number of enterprises going bust or being dissolved has continued to increase in the first five months of this year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

VietNamNet Bridge – The number of enterprises that shut down in the January-April period was nearly 21,500, up 9.4% year-on-year.

Of the more than 500,000 operating enterprises in Vietnam, up to 95-96% are small and super-small ones. If household-scaled businesses are added to the statistics, the percentage of small, super-small and micro-enterprises may account for 99.9%.