Measures to support small and medium enterprises strengthened

Up to September 30, there are around 13,600 operating enterprises in the province (excluding FDI ones), 12,065 of which are small and medium.

Vice Chairperson Phan Thi My Thanh worked with departments and sectors

Production - business activities of enterprises plays an important role in the province's economic growth. In period 2006-2010, the growth rate of average export turnover of small and medium businesses in industrial sector reached 15.04%, lower than the average growth rate of the province (17.18 %) but had an important contribution to the initiative production of domestic enterprises, helping to create jobs for 63,747 people.

Due to the impacts of inflation, in the first nine months of 2011, 228 enterprises had to be dissolved. The reasons could be listed like economic downturn, high interest rates, shrinking market. The rate of dissolved enterprises were not high when calculating on the total number of small and medium enterprises in the province but were alarming. Currently, people find it harder to find jobs than before.

During the year, more than 200 companies dissolved due to economic downturn.

 Bo Ngoc Thu, Director of Planning - Investment Department, said difficult situation of the enterprises were seen but the support for small and medium enterprises started just in 2011so the efficiency was not high. Besides, the policies of the ministries and central agencies were not issued synchronously such as the establishments of Enterprise Support Council and the SMB Foundation were not guided specifically and the apparatus supporting small and medium enterprises in the locality did not meet requirements.

Assist enterprises in improving their competitiveness and developing market is the long-term solution

Addressing the meeting, Vice Chairman Phan Thi My Thanh said that to support businesses through tough times, the first thing to do is focusing on administrative reforms in a way of creating transparency and shortening dossier-processing time. Besides, she said, the local districts  needed to increase contacts with businesses to find out about their operation after license issuance and the banking system apply policies in a way that small and medium enterprises could access loans for their production in the current difficult situation.

In the long run, she said, it is necessary to focus on measures that help enterprises improve their competitiveness, corporate administration, trade promotion and market expansion. N. Trade,

Reported by N. Thuong, Translated by Minh Minh