Hanoi gives support to businesses amid pandemic

Enterprises in Hanoi have been receiving support to overcome difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a survey conducted by the Hanoi Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (Hanoisme) among 1,500 of its member businesses, 57 percent of them are operating moderately and 38 percent are at normal operation levels. Enterprises that are temporarily suspending operations or waiting for dissolution accounted for 2.6 percent, while only 1.4 percent are seeing good performance.

Those enterprises faced difficulties in capital and production due to having to comply with pandemic prevention regulations, said the association.

Hanoisme Vice Chairman and General Secretary Mac Quoc Anh said that to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the association has organised trade promotion programmes and is pushing for greater networking among enterprises.

The association has also organised seminars on digital transformation, helping SMEs to change their business models to the new COVID-19-driven move to digital.

In addition, Anh has proposed that Hanoi exempt enterprises from land use tax for six months of 2021 to compensate for periods of suspended production in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.

Anh also flagged reducing administrative procedures for businesses to make it easier for them to attract investment. In particular, red tape obstructing the construction of production facilities.

Meanwhile, industry and trade associations have been asked to conduct surveys of enterprises and business households regarding their ability to access capital and commercial leases.

The surveys, requested by the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade, will be used to make recommendations to the Hanoi People's Committee on ways to support those enterprises and business households as well as their employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Tran Thi Phuong Lan, the department’s acting director.

Due to negative impacts from COVID-19, the Hanoi Department of Transport has proposed the People's Committee to approve the adjustment of capacity and revenue targets in public passenger transport by buses in 2021; and support in loan interest of 2021 for investment projects of replacing buses to improve service quality.

The transport department noted that inter-provincial passenger transport of the city in May only reached 47 percent of capacity compared to April and decreased by 28.7 percent over the same period in 2020. Of which, bus transport decreased by 30 percent in capacity year on year and 41.5 percent month on month. The revenue from bus transport also dropped by 40 percent and 51.2 percent, respectively.

The revenue of the transport companies has decreased, while they must pay large expenses such as interest on bank loans, taxes, land rent, road usage fees, parking fees and salaries for workers.

The Hanoi People's Committee passed a Directive on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in the city back in December 2020.

The aim of this Directive was to maintain an average growth rate of new businesses at 10 percent per year (or about 30,000 enterprises); and creation of about 1.5 million new jobs. SMEs will contribute 25 percent to total export turnover, 40 percent to the city's GDP and 30 percent to the city's budget./.