During the pandemic, businesses should not wait for support

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Businesses need proactive solutions to restore production. Photo: H.Diu

On July 23, the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises of Hanoi held a seminar with businesses with the theme: "Pandemic - Opportunities and challenges".

Turn into opportunities

Speaking at the seminar, Mac Quoc Anh, Vice President and General Secretary of the Hanoi Association of Small and Medium Enterprises said since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Government has had many support programmes on taxes, fees, interest rates, etc. for businesses.

In particular, in Hanoi, firms also receive a lot of support such as a support package of VND1,000 billion for innovative start-ups from 2021-2025; supporting 3,600 enterprises for production and business premises; supporting enterprises in scientific and technological research and intellectual property with the amount of VND50-100 million/enterprise; work with the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade to implement solutions to maintain production and business, promote trade in goods and settle inventories for businesses.

From the business perspective, Nguyen Xuan Phu, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sunhouse Group Joint Stock Company, said the pandemic had a bad impact on one group of businesses, but it was also an opportunity for another group of businesses. Therefore, policies need to be analyzsd to reach exactly what businesses need, as well as find out how to effectively support.

Sharing a solution for firms to turn challenges into opportunities during the pandemic, Dinh Thi Thuy, Director of MISA Joint Stock Company, said that her business has been preparing to live with the pandemic since 2020, so it has used technology to ensure smooth operations. Currently, MISA has provided a unified business administration application, as well as free online accounting services for 30,000 businesses.

Thuy said businesses that want to turn challenges into opportunities must rely on 70% of cognitive thinking, so businesses should pay attention to digital transformation, optimising costs to restore production.

Similarly, leaders of Sunhouse Group also shared that before the pandemic, the main business segment did not grow as expected, the domestic market was also not positive when revenue increased only about 8% over the same period, but the business has taken advantage of the export market to aim at a revenue growth of 25% for the whole group.

Take the initiative to fix the situation

However, according to many businesses, still like during the pandemic in 2020, small and medium-sized businesses still need more support policies. Because of the current reality, although there have been many changes compared to 2020, many firms said that trade promotion is still not effective, it is necessary to innovate towards a more modern direction to thoroughly apply e-commerce.

In addition, many businesses reflect the reduction of lending interest rates is being implemented by banks since mid-July 2021, the reduction of 1-2%/year in interest rates is positive, but reality is still difficult, firms who want to receive the interest rate reduction regime must meet many accompanying conditions set forth by the bank. Moreover, businesses also want the debt freezing and debt rescheduling by banks to continue until the end of June 2022.

Nguyen Xuan Phu also suggested that management agencies implementing support policies need to change their thinking towards accompanying businesses so that the support can be effectively implemented. In addition, management agencies must find solutions to classify groups of businesses to provide a direct support mechanism to "pump" money appropriately to each enterprise.

“Shark” Phu gives advice, domestic businesses must also prepare response scenarios for businesses, minimising damage. In addition, businesses should not rely on support policies, but should find ways to overcome them, because the number of firms is large, and the management agencies are also worried about supporting the people and preventing the pandemic, so policies will not be implemented as quickly as expected.