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Vietnamese businesses need to improve their competitiveness and proactively keep pace with the trend of reshaping the global supply chain. Source: Internet.

The biggest limitation is competitiveness

At the Conference "Improving the effectiveness of international economic integration, promoting rapid and sustainable economic development" held in Ho Chi Minh City last weekend, speakers identified one of the biggest limitations of businesses. (DN) today is competitiveness. Ms. Lam Thi Quynh Anh, Head of Domestic Integration Department, Office of the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee for International Economic Integration, said that through working with a number of businesses in Ho Chi Minh City, businesses all believe that, in this environment, in today's integrated market, the biggest limitation of businesses is their competitiveness.

According to the report of the Office of the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee for International Economic Integration, currently, Vietnam is implementing deep and comprehensive integration in all fields of economics, politics, social culture, security and defense, with economic integration being the focus. Therefore, Vietnam's economy must both ensure independence and autonomy and be closely linked to the world economy to promptly grasp opportunities and overcome challenges in the integration process. The world is moving from a knowledge economy to digital globalization and the digital economy under the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution; Globalization is gradually shifting to regionalization of trade, the trend of bilateral cooperation is dominating over multilateral cooperation; the struggle between the trend of increasing trade protectionism and anti-trade protectionism; The shifting trend of supply chains in the world after the Covid-19 pandemic...

Mr. Pham Binh An, Standing Deputy Head of the Ho Chi Minh City International Integration Steering Committee, said that in order to adapt to the above requirements, in recent times, Ho Chi Minh City has actively implemented international economic integration activities, implementing effectively implement new generation FTAs. This is also the locality with the largest trade and investment exchange activities in the country, with total import-export turnover of goods in 2022 reaching more than 110 billion USD, foreign investment capital in 2022 reaching over 3.94 billion USD. To achieve this result, Ho Chi Minh City has focused on promoting propaganda and communication activities on international integration with diverse and flexible forms, targeting on in-depth content related to the changing situation and world economic integration.

Ho Chi Minh City has a large number of enterprises, but mainly small, micro and medium enterprises. Meanwhile, the issue of integration is only of greater concern to large, exporting enterprises. In addition, the link between foreign-invested enterprises and domestic enterprises has not met expectations. In addition, the implementation of issues in the new generation FTA such as labor, trade unions, environment, dual conversion trend, energy conversion... have not been specifically guided by central agencies to localities to prepare for effective implementation. With increasingly strict demands across markets, policies to support businesses are still limited.

Also according to Mr. An, it is worth mentioning that recently, Vietnam has prepared a "nest" to welcome "eagles", but there are also "eagles" that fly in and then fly away. One of the reasons is that Vietnamese labor is abundant, but the quality and skills are still low, not meeting the high requirements of investors and large corporations in the world.

Sharing this view, Ms. Lam Thi Quynh Anh said that currently, Vietnamese goods have been exported to over 230 countries and territories, with remarkable development. However, shortcomings have been revealed, the competitiveness of the economy, businesses and products is still weak. Currently, Vietnam has about 800,000 businesses operating, of which 300,000 businesses in Ho Chi Minh City alone. However, most small and medium-sized enterprises find it difficult to participate in high value-added stages and only stop at the simple processing stage. The beneficiaries of FTAs mainly belong to FDI enterprises, with 70% of total export value concentrated in FDI enterprises; the number of domestic enterprises participating in this large playground is still limited.

Enterprises proactively integrate

On July 5, 2023, the Government issued Resolution No. 93/NQ-CP on improving the effectiveness of international economic integration, promoting rapid and sustainable economic development in the 2023-2030 period, of which Set out major directions for international economic integration in the coming time.

According to Ms. Lam Thi Quynh Anh, Resolution No. 93/NQ-CP was issued with many specific goals, such as: transforming the benefits of international economic integration into results in the process of recovery and development. economy; improving the level and quality of international economic integration, positively contributing to the process of innovating the growth model towards sustainability; improve the economy's resilience to negative external impacts; enhance the competitiveness of the economy...

Currently, Vietnam has established official relations with 189/193 countries, has economic, trade and investment relations with over 224 countries and territories, signed 15 FTAs with over 60 partners, has 71 partners, recognized that Vietnam has a market economy. Achievements in implementing international economic integration have created favorable conditions for Vietnam to successfully implement socio-economic development goals in recent times, notably economic development. Growth is gradually steady and increasingly improved; Economic scale is increasingly expanding; the balance of export and import of goods has improved significantly, moving from deficit to surplus; Export markets are expanded and diversified, markets where Vietnam has signed new generation FTAs all record annual export growth...

However, besides that, the economy is still facing challenges such as: the competitiveness of the economy, businesses and products of our country, although improved, are still weak compared to the world. , including countries in the region; Effectively taking advantage of opportunities and benefits from international commitments in some limited areas; International economic integration is not really closely linked with the requirements of improving quality, efficiency and sustainable development of the economy; the level of innovation in thinking, creativity in thinking, and determination in action is not really high, in addition, the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are still causing negative effects on the economy.

According to experts, in addition to the initiative of businesses, in the current context, it is necessary to consider a number of policy solutions such as: focusing on mobilizing and effectively using resources to build the internal strength of the economy, to be able to effectively respond to major shifts and fluctuations in the global economy. Along with taking advantage of trade to promote growth, taking advantage of the advantages gained from new generation FTAs; consolidating internal strength by drastically implementing economic restructuring, synchronously developing important economic sectors associated with import and export trade and opening up the domestic market. Next, promote exploitation of the domestic market through closely linking the development of raw material production areas with processing and export industries.

In particular, with the trend of increasing trade protection, Vietnam needs to improve the competitiveness of businesses and products; Strengthen control of quality, origin, fight against trade fraud and proactively respond to organizations implementing Vietnam's international integration commitments, especially commitments in signed FTAs to ensure Vietnam's integration process is more effective and sustainable.