-
 Since
the Enterprise Law became effective in 2000, in Ho Chi Minh
City, the number of businesses established has remarkably
increased. To date, more than 50,000 enterprises have been
registered, accounting for one third of all formally-registered
enterprises in the whole country.
It is widely understood that in a pond of thousands of newborn
fish, it is natural that some may die right away and others may
grow up very fast. The Enterprise Law has eased the business
registration process - an entrepreneur can easily register a new
business without any evidence of actually having it capitalized
and operational. However, a post-registration monitoring scheme
needs to be set up to maintain a database of enterprise
information, and effectively support firms in their operations.
Most newly established firms need to struggle by themselves in
running their businesses, without much support or assistance
from the government (except for regular interaction with tax
agencies). The "disappearance" rate (firms closing without
completing the formal exit procedures) in Vietnam is quite high,
due to the absence of a post-registration monitoring system.
Mr. Truong Trong Nghia, Vice President of
Investment and Trade Promotion Centre of HCMC (ITPC),
Head of Management Board of HCMC Public-Private Dialogue System
-
Under the
sponsorship of the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA),
the Agency for Small and Medium Enterprises is coordinating with
the Departments of Planning and Investment in 30 northern
provinces to conduct a needs assessment among small and medium
sized enterprises. Findings from this survey will serve as key
inputs for an official, accurate and up-dated enterprise
information database in the provinces. We are currently in the
process of collating questionnaires, and entering and processing
the data collected. We have observed a significant difference
between the number of registered enterprises and the number of
operational companies, due to the following factors: i) a number
of enterprises registered, but they never started their
operations, perhaps due to business ideas were too vague or not
clearly thought out; ii) firms moved to new location, without
notifying the authorized agency; and iii) firms missed a
specific business opportunity after registration and thus never
started operations. In this last case, they should have returned
their registration license and the company stamp to the
registration agency. But the business registration agency is too
busy to monitor all registered businesses and deal with
non-operational companies.
Mr. Ta Dinh Xuyen, Director,
Hanoi Technical Assistance Center for Small and Medium
Enterprises
-
l Currently there
are three different enterprise information databases at three
different agencies, and their data, in my opinion, are all
accurate. The Ministry of Planning and Investment maintains a
business registration database. Therefore the total figure
provided by MPI is the number of formally-registered enterprises
accumulated over many years - around 140,000 registered
enterprises at present. The tax authority manages a database of
enterprises with tax codes, since businesses have to apply for a
tax code at the tax agency, after registration. This list
comprises over 100,000 enterprises. The Statistics Office keeps
a database of enterprises that are actually operating in the
economy. This latter database excludes all "disappearing"
businesses, and is updated on 31st December every year. As at
31st December 2003, there were 72,012 operational enterprises.
During the past few years, the business registration figures
have been very popular, while the other numbers provided by the
tax and statistics agencies are much less well known. Moreover,
users are not well-informed of the sources and characteristics
of these business registration figures, and tend to accidentally
misuse them. In my opinion, it is critical for the above three
agencies to work together to capture a more accurate and
valuable picture of private sector development in Vietnam.
Mr. Vu Van Tuan,
Director of Industrial and Construction Statistical Department,
General Statistics Office
-
 Our
Department of Planning and Investment can only keep track of
formally registered enterprises and enterprises that formally
close down. To know the actual number of operational
enterprises, it is necessary to get help from the tax
authorities and other local relevant agencies. For example, in
2004, when we sent requests to 50,000 enterprises in our
database to submit their annual business reports, 3,000 were
returned by the post office as undeliverable. There are some
possible reasons for this phenomenon: i) some enterprises have
moved to new premises, without notifying our business
registration agency; ii) other firms "disappear", by stopping
operations but not completing the formal exit procedure; and
iii) there are cases where firms never began operations, because
they were set up for "other" purposes, such as to get residence
permits. In my opinion, the formal exit procedure is not so
complicated. Many firms ignore this procedure on purpose, so as
to avoid paying tax obligations.
Mr. Dao Xuan Duc, Chief of Business Registration Division,
Ho Chi Minh City Department of Planning and Investment
>> More...
|
