Vũ Tiến Lộc, VCCI chairman speaks at the fourth national start-up forum in Hà Nội on Monday. — Photo dientungaynay.vn

HÀ NỘI — In order to promote start-ups, complete policies were necessary to support them, heard the fourth national start-up forum in Hà Nội on Monday.

The forum was organised by Diễn Đàn Doanh Nghiệp (Business Forum) newspaper under the Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

Opening the forum, Vũ Tiến Lộc, VCCI chairman, said the Government, ministries and sectors had been focusing on implementing the Law on Support for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises.

From central to local levels, authorities had also promoted policies to encourage innovative spirit in the 4.0 era, as well as mobilising and supporting new business models, he added.

A survey showed that among 60 countries, Việt Nam had one of the highest entrepreneurial spirits in the world.

However, the country's inability to realise ideas put it among the bottom 20 in the ranking.

“There is a big gap between aspirations, actions and results. We need more support from institutions and policies to meet our aspirations,” noted the chairman.

Commenting on start-up support policies, Đậu Anh Tuấn, director general of the VCCI’s Legal Department, said there were about 800,000 enterprises operating in Viet Nam in addition to five million business households.

In order to promote an entrepreneurial spirit, it was necessary to create more favourable conditions for households to switch to the enterprise model, and unlock their resources and potential. Focusing on assisting household businesses to join the market so they could access capital and promote the application of information technology should be a priority, as well as meeting the requirements of transparency and developing the legal system, Tuấn said.

We had worked with start-up networks to better support and provide information to the business community, said Trần Trí Dũng, an expert from the Swiss Entrepreneurship Programme.

In fact, Việt Nam had many laws and legal institutions, but most start-ups did not spend a lot of time studying legal issues and policies before they started a business, Dũng added.

According to Trần Xuân Đích, deputy head of the market and business development department under the Ministry of Science and Technology, start-ups, especially, innovative start-ups, played an important role in national economic development.

For innovative start-ups to grow and make practical contributions to the economy, it was necessary to develop an ecosystem for them, creating connections and improving the capacity of other entities towards supporting and promoting the development of start-ups.

“The Ministry of Science and Technology will focus on building and developing start-up networks on a national and international scale. It will also promote the formation of innovation centres nationwide, help creative start-ups to develop; and consult with research institutes and universities to commercialise start-ups, establishing intellectual property rights to confidently step into the global market,” said Đích.

"We will work together to build and develop top start-ups towards solving social issues, creating positive impacts on society at national, regional and international levels while promoting indigenous cultures, ” he added. — VNS