Private businesses in Vietnam grow in both quantity, quality

The number of newly established private enterprises in Vietnam has increased steadily every year, from 70,900 in the 2015-2020 period to 112,500 in the 2015-2020. Not only quantity, capital scale and capacity of private enterprises have also improved.

Manufacturing at Cosmos Industrial Co.,Ltd in Vinh Phuc Province (Photo: Van Hien)
Manufacturing at Cosmos Industrial Co.,Ltd in Vinh Phuc Province (Photo: Van Hien)

In the first ten months of 2021, despite the serious impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, over 93,000 new firms were set up.

In 2011, there were about 325,000 private enterprises in Vietnam and the figure rose to 647,000 in 2019.

The scale of production and capital of private enterprises also increased sharply, from 6,875 trillion VND (303.6 billion USD) in 2011 to 24,024 trillion VND (1.06 trillion USD) in 2019, nearly 3.5 times higher.

Over the last five years, the number of private enterprises making it into Vietnam’s 500 largest companies is on the rise. Six private firms have even made their way into the Asian and global lists.

The private sector plays an increasingly significant part in the economy as it contributed 40 percent of Vietnam’s GDP.

The Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) attributed the positive results to the policy of developing the private economic sector in association with the economic transformation process of the Party and State.

According to experts, although there have been positive improvements, the capacity of the private economic sector is still limited, and does not commensurate with their role and expectations.

In order to improve the capacity of the private economic sector, it is necessary to focus on solutions to assist businesses in restoring production, minimising the negative impacts of the pandemic, stabilising production and business, and ensuring workers' income and safety for workers, including creating conditions for enterprises to access new loans to restore production and business.