The report of the Statistics Office (Ministry of Finance) released on the morning of August 6 showed two sad and happy sides of the economy in general and the performance of businesses in particular.
On the one hand, the good news is that in July, the whole country had 16.5 thousand newly established enterprises with a registered capital of 117.4 trillion VND and a registered number of nearly 79,000 employees.
In addition, the whole country has 66.3 thousand enterprises returning to operation (an increase of 49.8% over the same period in 2024). On average, 24.9 thousand newly established and returning to operation enterprises per month.
But on the other hand, it is alarming that in the first 7 months of this year, the number of enterprises temporarily suspended business for a period of 88.6 thousand, an increase of 13.6% over the same period last year. On average, 20.6 thousand businesses withdraw from the market each month.
This shows that the solutions proposed by ministries and branches - especially the Ministry of Finance - to remove barriers for businesses, such as creating a favorable, transparent and effective business environment; focusing on removing market barriers; actually cutting administrative procedures, compliance costs; reforming the business environment... are effective, but have not yet achieved the desired results.
In reality, common difficulties and barriers for businesses, especially small businesses in localities, are always capital, premises, administrative procedures, etc.
And behind these common difficulties is also the unfairness of local leaders, when favouring large enterprises and "ignoring" small enterprises and startups.
Regarding the removal of barriers for businesses, at the end of July, Chairman of the Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee - Mr. Pham Anh Tuan - had a dialogue with associations and businesses to directly listen to, answer recommendations and remove difficulties to promote production and business activities in the province.
Gia Lai is also one of the bright spots in the Central region when as of July 18, the province had 1,500 newly established enterprises with a total registered capital of VND 12,800 billion.
At the dialogue, Mr. Pham Anh Tuan pledged that the leaders of Gia Lai province will always treat businesses fairly and transparently in supporting and resolving issues - regardless of whether they are large or small.
Hopefully, the commitments to fair and transparent treatment of businesses, regardless of scale, will spread to many other localities, not just Gia Lai province.
Of course, commitments need to be demonstrated through concrete actions and bring real results.
If they stop at just flat words without action, local leaders will not only lose prestige with people and businesses but also become an obstacle to the development of the economy.
