On October 17, the Vietnam Sports Economic Forum 2024 took place in Hanoi with the theme "Promoting the potential of Vietnam's sports economy in the new era".
Speaking at the forum, Mr. Dang Ha Viet - Director of the Department of Physical Training and Sports shared: "The process of socializing the sports industry has both advantages and difficulties. The advantage is that over the past many years, legal documents and policies have all mentioned socializing sports. I think it is a wise policy of the Party and the State, creating conditions for the development of the sports industry.
Second, the development of the socio-economy is increasingly high, the people's interest in sports is increasing. This is an industry that can do business and build a brand. Investing in event organization attracts many businesses.
However, there are also many difficulties related to promoting businesses to invest and develop joint ventures... For example, the issue of bonuses, units and companies giving bonuses to athletes are still deducted from income tax, which is also a barrier to socialization.
Mr. Viet added: "The Vietnam Olympic Committee, federations and associations have not fully promoted their functions and tasks, have not been proactive in calling for and creating events and values of their own to attract sponsorship. Only a few federations have called for socialized resources in training and selecting athletes to compete abroad. The rest, most of the federations only stop at calling for socialized resources for a few small-scale event organization activities."
The Director of the Department of Physical Education and Sports cited that each year there are about 2,500 sports tournaments, of which the sports industry needs to participate in at least 700 tournaments, but the central budget only guarantees 170 tournaments, the remaining resources come from local budgets and socialization. Although the Federations and Associations share, they have not contributed a large proportion, and there needs to be reinforcement and clear solutions.
Regarding legal issues, Mr. Le Thanh Liem - Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that the legal system on physical education and sports is divided into two groups: the group directly regulating physical education and sports activities; the group of related documents, especially regulations related to investment incentives, resource mobilization, and tax policies for physical education and sports activities.
According to Mr. Liem, from a place where physical education and sports were completely subsidized by the State, they have now been gradually socialized, some sports have gradually shifted to a professional sports mechanism, and the role of social organizations and socio-professional organizations in physical education and sports has been increasingly enhanced.
However, compared to developed countries in the region such as Korea, Japan, China... Vietnam's sports economy has not been able to catch up. For example, while the above countries have organized many major tournaments (Mega Sport Events) such as the Olympics, World Cup or ASIAD, Vietnam has only stopped at organizing the SEA Games (Southeast Asia region).
Regarding this, Mr. Oh Yeong Woo - former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Korea said: "Korea has hosted many major tournaments such as the 2002 World Cup, 2014 ASIAD, 2018 Winter Olympics... also bringing great economic efficiency. In addition to material value, these sporting events also bring many values to Korea such as environmental issues, civil rights... brought by society.
For example, the 2002 World Cup helped spread Korean idol culture, bringing economic resources to my country.
I know that Vietnam has no experience in organizing large sporting events. To organize large-scale events, the most important factor is the level of interest and determination of the people, followed by the preparation time, which can be very long, up to 10-12 years.
Organizing sports events requires huge capital, preparation not only for sports infrastructure but also many other related issues such as transportation systems... I feel the difficulties in developing Vietnam's sports economy. But I believe that Vietnam can overcome it, we must take risks to invest through sports events to develop the economy and promote the country's image."
