Nearly 57 per cent of adults in Viet Nam are aware of entrepreneurship, ranking ninth out of 60 economies in the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey.

The Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) held a conference to announce the result of the survey in HCM on Thursday.

The data was collected from 2,000 adults and 36 experts in Viet Nam. The report shows a panorama of business development in Viet Nam.

The report also showed that the rate of fear of failure decreased to 45.6 per cent in 2015 from 50 per cent in 2014.

However, according to the report, the innovation level of the country's total early-stage entrepreneurial activity is low at only 16.5 per cent, ranking 50th.

Vo Tan Thanh, deputy chairman of VCCI, said start-ups in Viet Nam have developed strongly and had attracted the enterprise community and investors.

The Vietnamese Government was outlining policies to a start-up ecosystem and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), he added.

chinhphu.vn quoted Richard Bale, Consulate General of Canada in HCM City as saying that even though Vietnamese start-up spirit was high, the country's start-up community lacked many things, including funds.

He said that funds for start-ups in Singapore were mainly from its Government, while Vietnamese start-ups had to find credit from other sources.

To boost the start-up movement, Viet Nam needed to continue improving the business environment by stabilising the marco-economy and removing barriers to build confidence among entrepreneurs and promote start-up spirit, experts at the conference said.

Nguyen Duc Binh, director of VCCI's SME promotion centre, said that it was crucial to build a start-up eco-system and have policies to support the development of private models for start-ups.

Ultising online environment

Viet Nam ranked first on interaction between users and enterprise fan pages on Facebook, according to Huynh Kim Tuoc, Facebook's team lead of Emerging Markets, SEA.

Tuoc said this at a meeting in Ha Noi on Tuesday.

Also, according to Tuoc, the country ranked second in exports and advertisement through Facebook and eighth for business on the Internet.

Viet Nam should ultilise the Internet to develop the country's e-commerce, he said, adding that the country had a young generation.

The meeting, organised by US-ASEAN Business Council and VCC, discussed how to enhance capacity for SMEs through tech innovation.

The meeting attracted more than 100 SME leaders and representatives from large corporations, including Facebook, Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Google.

Speakers discussed how SMEs should use digital tools, such as digital payment, digital marketing, cloud computing and technological innovation in developing enterprises.

The meeting served as a foundation for multinational corporations to share their experiences with the SME community in Viet Nam. 

VNS