Businesses trip over cumbersome procedures
By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – HCMC-based enterprises are having difficulty with taxes, import-export procedures, collateral for loans and paperwork for subsidized credits under the city’s demand stimulus program.
This was what business executives shared at various meetings held by the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade in the year’s first half. The department on Tuesday reported it had organized 14 meetings with business in the first half of the year, with each attended by some 100 business representatives.
Given the problems confronted by the city’s firms, the city government has quickly adjusted documents and asked the Government to adopt policies appropriate with the prevalent regulations and the actual business and production situation, said the department.
As for the subsidized loans for enterprises under the stimulus program, Vong A Loc, head of the planning division at the department, said 27 projects had been approved for lending rate support worth nearly VND1.4 trillion in 2011.
He said 27 was a small number. The reason is manufacturers last year grappled with many troubles in production and goods consumption, so they had little need to borrow to expand production.
Loc said the HCMC government had requested the relevant departments to boost publicity so that businesses could approach loans with preferential lending rates. However, in the first six months, only two projects gained access to subsidized loans under the city’s stimulus program.
The department said the city’s industrial manufacturing sector recorded sluggish growth in the year’s first half, up 5% year-on-year, indicating that production is still mired in troubles.
High inventories, perfunctory production and material purchase declines are the main reasons. Many enterprises are incapable of absorbing capital or struggling with bad debts, thus they cannot borrow new funds.