by VBF 10/01/2024, 11:09

Resolution 41-NQ/TW Empowering Vietnamese Entrepreneurs

Resolution 41-NQ/TW of the Politburo dated October 10, 2023 reflects a shift in perspectives, orientations and implementation solutions to meet the aspirations of Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Affirming entrepreneurs as a 'core force,' the resolution emphasized their role in advancing the nation's industrialization, modernization, international integration, and economic independence, while also ensuring national defense and security.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Deputy Prime Ministers Le Minh Khai and Tran Luu Quang attended the meeting of the Standing Government with representatives of Vietnamese businessmen - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Affirming the important role of Vietnamese entrepreneurs and businesses

According to VCCI Vice President Nguyen Quang Vinh, under the focused attention of the Party and State, the elevation of Vietnamese businesses and entrepreneurs has been a consistent priority. This commitment has intensified since 2004, with the official designation of October 13th as Vietnamese Entrepreneurs' Day. Resolution 09-NQ/TW dated December 9, 2011 by the Politburo marked a significant milestone, reinforcing the Party's dedication to building and amplifying the role of Vietnamese entrepreneurs.

In 2013, the Constitution enshrined regulations on entrepreneurs, recognizing their rights to invest, produce, and engage in business. This constitutional acknowledgment underscored the Party and State's support, fostering trust and resilience within the entrepreneurial community, leading to remarkable economic development during the reform period.

On October 10, 2023, when the Politburo issued Resolution 41-NQ/TW. This resolution not only replaced its predecessor (Resolution 09-NQ/TW) but also charted a course toward building a strong cadre of Vietnamese entrepreneurs. The resolution expressed the Party's direction to nurture a robust entrepreneurial force capable of driving Vietnam to be a developed nation by 2045.

VCCI Vice President Nguyen Quang Vinh underlined a shift in the role and stature of the entrepreneurial community, surpassing the benchmarks set by Resolution 09. This signals a profound evolution in the Party's perception of the Vietnamese entrepreneurial landscape, particularly amid the new era dedicated to realizing the nation's development goals.

"To fulfill this role, the Vietnamese entrepreneurial community must undergo robust growth," asserted VCCI Vice President Nguyen Quang Vinh. Resolution 41 articulates a comprehensive goal: cultivating a strong entrepreneurial force marked by quantity and quality, featuring individuals with vision, intelligence, ethics, entrepreneurial spirit, social responsibility, and environmental consciousness. These entrepreneurs are envisioned to make substantial contributions aligning with the country's development objectives until 2030 and 2045, as outlined by the 13th Party Congress.

Over the past 37 years of free-market reforms, the Vietnamese business community has not only expanded in numbers but has also demonstrated remarkable qualitative advancements. With over 1.3 million newly registered enterprises from 2011 to 2022, constituting 69.11% of total establishments since the introduction of the enterprise law, the current landscape boasts over 900,000 businesses, more than 5 million business households, and nearly 30,000 cooperatives. The thriving entrepreneurial spirit, evidenced by millions of entrepreneurs nationwide, has played an important role in managing, organizing, and contributing to the global market, elevating Vietnam's economy to the top 40 in terms of GDP and top 20 in international trade.

Prof. Dr. Le Van Loi, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, highlighted the entrepreneurial community's role as a driving force for change and development across various industries. Their leadership and innovation are steering Vietnam's economy toward sustainable development in the present and future.

Focus on cultivating strong corporations

The government’s recent resolutions on economic development aimed to foster economic groups, with a particular emphasis on nurturing formidable private economic entities. As Vietnam sets its sights on achieving 1.5 million enterprises by 2025, including 60,000 to 70,000 medium and large-scale enterprises, the goal for 2030 is to establish at least 2 million businesses. The aim is to develop robust private economic groups with the potential for competitiveness in both domestic and international markets.

In pursuit of creating leading enterprises with global competitiveness, adept at mastering domestic value chains and integrating into the global value chain, Dr. Luong Minh Huan, Director of the Institute for Enterprise Development, VCCI, highlighted the importance of enhancing state management efficiency. This involves fostering a unified awareness and ideology regarding private economic development, acknowledging its pivotal role in driving economic progress. An essential aspect of this initiative involves refining the legal framework for economic group development, including clearly defining the legal nature and model of economic groups, refining the nomenclature for private economic groups, and enhancing legal solutions for capital mobilization, accumulation, and concentration for private economic corporations.

Dr. Pham Dinh Doan, Chairman of Phu Thai Group, emphasized the need to empower the private economy for market participation, advocating for fair competition across economic sectors. This entails creating a transparent and equitable business environment, ensuring equal access to input resources and output markets. Dr. Doan emphasized the importance of further mobilizing private sector resources for infrastructure development.

Dr. Doan advocated for incentives for key industrial projects, better foreign investment management, and the promotion of competitiveness through industry linkages and enhanced production quality. Addressing the rapidly evolving energy landscape, he emphasized special policies for developing key industries aligned with sustainable practices, capitalizing on the trend towards green and sustainable criteria.

Furthermore, the call to strongly develop the Digital Government emerges as a necessity, fostering economic transparency and reducing unofficial costs. Supporting economic corporations in innovation, green and digital economy development, technology modernization, and human resource enhancement is imperative. Timely and transparent dissemination of policy, market, and resource information, backed by real data, is emphasized to enable businesses in planning and risk management.

Nurturing a robust and sustainable business community, marked by globally competitive corporations, visionary entrepreneurs and a sense of national pride, serves as a foundation to realize the goal for Vietnam to become a prosperous, developed and self-reliant country by 2045 at its 100th anniversary.

Dr. Nguyen Huy Phong, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics

Along with the nearly 40-year achievements of Doi Moi (reform), the Vietnamese entrepreneur force has continuously grown in maturity and strength, contributed significantly to the country’s development, and affirmed Vietnam’s position, prestige and image in the international arena. However, in the current new context, Vietnamese entrepreneurs also encounter various difficulties and challenges. It is essential and meaningful to inherit and uphold the fine traditions that former entrepreneurs in history established, combined with the essence and business philosophy of successful entrepreneurs in the world, to create the identity of Vietnamese business culture in the new context. Fundamental and core values such as patriotism, self-reliance, creativity, innovation, development, responsibility and respect for the law need to be maintained, enhanced, supplemented and developed by the current business force in line with practical situations and international integration trends. By building and implementing the value system of their force and class well, they not only create their own value and identity, but also generate new impulses and motivation for the entrepreneur force to constantly innovate and create great material and spiritual values, joining with other social strata to soon achieve the goals and aspirations of building a prosperous and happy Vietnam as stated in the resolution of the 13th National Party Congress.

Dr. Vu Ngoc Thanh, Institute of Political Economy - Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics

The social responsibility of nationalistic entrepreneurs is an integral part of their virtues. In their business endeavors, they exercise social responsibility, especially by supporting people with meritorious service to the nation, poor people, and people in disadvantaged remote areas, border areas and islands. With regard to Vietnam’s international economic integration, with a focus on trade and investment, nationalistic entrepreneurs actively pursue and expand foreign markets for their products, carry out domestic production and processing activities in accordance with the standards and requirements of import markets, proactively establish international investment cooperation and adopt modern advanced science and technology, environmentally friendly technology to save energy and resources for the country through investment cooperation in production/business, thereby helping to fulfil Vietnam’s integration commitments and utilize the incentives and advantages from effective free trade agreements to which Vietnam is a signatory; proactively participate in global product value chains to enhance the production/business level of Vietnamese enterprises. In addition, they constantly endeavor to seek investment opportunities abroad to develop production and business, increase their incomes, boost revenue for their companies, ultimately increase their tax payment to the State budget, and improve the country’s prestige and position in the international arena.

Dr. Nguyen Xuan Hung, National Economics University

To build a new corporate culture, it is necessary to establish standards that are consistent with social progress and the socialist-oriented market economy, especially in the era of international integration. In this vision, building an entrepreneurial culture is a key point, the core of change and development. The new entrepreneurial culture requires not only intelligence and in-depth knowledge, but also national pride and patriotism. These are businesspeople who aspire to enrich themselves, but also have a responsibility to the community and the country. They can compete and integrate in the international market, as well as have business ethics, modern management capacity and the ability to balance the relations between personal interests, business interests and community interests. For the new entrepreneurial culture, social responsibility is indispensable. This is not only a legal responsibility, but also a moral responsibility, guiding businesses to participate in solving social problems, from environmental protection to sustainable development. In their actions, building harmonious, stable and progressive labor relations is an important factor. This not only creates a positive working environment, but also helps them maintain morale and increase productivity. Moreover, strengthening and diversifying communication forms is an important factor in changing the social perception of entrepreneurs and building their positive image in the socialist regime. Community understanding and support is the main factor that enables their development, while creating a positive impact, motivating them to be enthusiastic and creative in their business careers. Considering these factors, building a new entrepreneurial culture is not only the task of the companies themselves, but also the responsibility of the entire society. The support and cooperation from the community will create a positive and healthy business environment, and help enhance entrepreneur development and promote the formation of a bright future for the Vietnamese economy.