Ho Chi Minh City will continue practicing mechanisms and commitments by city leaders in the previous tenures to investors and businesses, said secretary of the city Party Committee Dinh La Thang at a seminar on linking Vietnamese strengths yesterday afternoon.
Talking about things that the city should do to link Vietnamese strengths at the event gathering 1,000 businesses, he affirmed the city’s trust in the contribution by all economic sectors including domestic or foreign to the city’s development.
The first thing that HCMC leaders need to do now is to tackle flooding to improve citizens and businesses’ belief in the city government, he added.
It is ripe time to link up Vietnamese strengths and the city should determine to practice that, Mr. Thang stated.
He questioned if patriotic and Party traditions can connect Vietnamese strengths and create a lever for the specific purposes of businesses; chief executive officers (CEO) can link up with existing policies transparently, in case they can not, what are reasons.
Businesses with cadre being CEOs can take the initiative to adapt to standards of new free trade agreements and what preparing steps are urgent in the current situation, he asked.
He queried if the city’s target to have 500,000 new enterprises out of 1 million nationwide by 2020 is feasible and which conditions are needed to make the target true.
According to Mr. Thang, experiences from successful nations show that it is necessary to develop a staff of CEOs who must have high national spirit to put the country’s benefits on the top of their priorities, meaning there will have a close solidarity and sharing of experiences, opportunities and risks with the principle of benefits for all relevant sides.
He called on Vietnamese CEOs to further unite together in a community responsible for the country’s prosperity, create strength to attempt the impossible that Vietnamese’s ancestors had done when building the country, he said believing they can do that.
Success impossible without connectivity
Chairman of the city People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong said that he was affected to see that not many local businesses have invested in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park.
Connectivity is not a new matter but the city has implemented it without high efficiency because of many reasons.
Amid the current context, it is needed to consider the connectivity between the government and businesses via specific actions to improve growth quality as well as the competitiveness of businesses and the city, he says.
He was concerned to see that HCMC has only ten in the list of 40 strongest brand names in Vietnam, he said.
The fact showed that Vietnamese brands and products have yet to be strong. Localities like HCMC should have many well-built brand names to develop the country strongly, he said.
Therefore, the city’s policy to develop 500,000 businesses will not only focus on building big brand names but also create a class of new startups who will continuously reform and create with global vision, national pride spirit and compliance with laws. This is condition and foundation for businesses to develop, he believed.
In the macro scale, many delegates at the event said that no businesses could survive without connectivity and connection with outside environment.
NA deputy Truong Trong Nghia said it was needed to improve the political position of businesses but not by putting that in the constitution but treat them fairly.
The State must be captain in signing and negotiating trade agreements. Locally, it should well play the role as an upright arbitrator and public servant to develop businesses and not raise difficulties for them.
He thought that businesses should abide by three requirements including national pride, business morality and law respect.
Mr. Hai Huu Tin, chairman cum director general of U & I Investment Joint Stock Company, said that Vietnamese businesses were completely possible to connect together successfully. The company has well carried out hundreds of connectivity projects so far.
HCMC has had dynamic and creative leaders creating conditions for enterprises to light up their aspirations, he said.
If having a proposal, he just asked for adding some adjectives in the phase “tectonic government” defined by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. They were transparent, fair, effective and accountable, he said.
The seminar themed “Linking Viet strengths, time to walk the talk?” was organized by the HCMC Young Entrepreneurs Association, the 2030 Businessmen Club, the Leading Businesses Club and the Vietnam High Quality Vietnamese Goods Association.
