In the past term, the Bac Ninh Small and Medium Enterprises Association achieved encouraging working results to win the trust of the government and become a spiritual support and timely encouragement for the business community towards a sustainable business environment. Vietnam Business Forum’s reporter has an interview with Mr. Nguyen Nhan Phuong, Chairman of the Bac Ninh Small and Medium Enterprises Association. Nguyet Tham reports.
Could you please introduce some outstanding achievements of the association in the past term?
Established in 2007 with 108 members, the association has become a reliable address and a common home of the business community. It has more than 1,000 members in eight district chapters, five teams and three strategic members.
In the past term, the association has made efforts to build and develop the organizational system from the province to district levels. Representing the SME community, the association annually coordinates with departments and branches to advise the Provincial People's Committee to host meetings and dialogues with SMEs to understand their difficulties and capture proposed solutions to remove existing difficulties and support business operations of local SMEs.
The Bac Ninh Small and Medium Enterprises Association developed useful and practical projects: Launching the “Business Doctor” Project; building the seminars on “Business needs and innovation approaches”, “Empowering efforts for a better business investment environment”. The association always searches and proposes business support projects. Since then, it will gradually improve the prestige of the province and reinforce the trust of businesses. Additionally, it mobilizes businesses and businesspeople to effectively implement the Campaign “Vietnamese people use Vietnamese goods” and actively participate in social security, humanitarian and charity activities.
With the achieved results, in 2018, the association was awarded the Third-class Labor Order by the Vietnamese President, and the Certificate of Operational Excellence for the 2015-2020 phase by the Bac Ninh Provincial People’s Committee. In the coming time, the Association will continue to advise the province on SME development orientations for the period 2020-2025 in writing to the province. Suggest the province to support the establishment of production management software of enterprises, to help enterprises manage information better.
Over the past years, how has the association improved member support? How has it gathered and attracted members to join its activities?
The association has excellently shown the role and function of representing and protecting legitimate interests of its members and the business community, promoting its connecting role between enterprises and authorities, and among enterprises. It has launched many programs to support its members to access business policies of central and provincial governments; seeking investment opportunities, building product brands, branding businesses, expanding connectivity and enhancing competitiveness to help its members improve their business performance.
The Bac Ninh Small and Medium Enterprises Association also launched the “startup nation” movement; coordinated with the Bac Ninh Investment and Startup Club and the Mekong Research Institute (Hanoi) to support local enterprises to boost product marketing, expand the market for handicraft furniture manufacturers, build startup game shows and create a foundation for the Bac Ninh business community to become increasingly united. At the same time, it discovered and proposed excellent businesses and entrepreneurs with great contributions to the provincial development for commendation to competent agencies. This has helped draw more companies to join its activities.
As the association chairman, what are your suggestions and recommendations on mechanisms and policies to ensure membership development in the coming time?
Through its dialogues and meetings with SMEs in 2020, the association has received more than 30 proposals from businesses and association divisions to the Provincial People’s Committee and competent authorities. Their matters covered the Law on SME Support and investment support policies for businesses. The association proposed that the Department of Industry and Trade and the Department of Construction advise the Provincial People's Committee to introduce locations for infrastructure companies to build industrial zones for start-up SMEs; proposed the Tax Department to consult land rent reduction for enterprises; and asked banks to extend repayment terms till the end of 2020 for medium and long-term loans. The association sent enterprises’ proposals to the Provincial People's Committee and hoped that the Provincial People’s Committee and competent authorities would have the best solution and settlement.
Source: Vietnam Business Forum
Vietnamese
October 2024
Hanoi