Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc talks to private business in the meeting on Thursday. — Photo thoibaotaichinhvietnam.vn

HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has urged private businesses in Việt Nam to be prepared and look for opportunities following news that companies in countries like China, Japan and South Korea would soon resume production after disruptions due to Covid-19.

“Like a compressed spring, we have to be prepared to rise up and turn risk into opportunity,” PM Phúc told a meeting on Thursday with private economic groups including big companies in the tourism, services, aviation, food and manufacturing sectors.

The World Health Organisation has declared the novel coronavirus, officially known as Covid-19, as a global pandemic. This means the world needs stronger concerted efforts in combating this deadly virus.

Việt Nam has 800,000 enterprises and millions of household businesses and at this time, enterprises and workers should be “the fortresses” in the pandemic battle, the Prime Minister said.

He endorsed efforts made by many corporations in preventing the disease spreading including applying advanced technology in work, reducing meetings and taking more precautionary measures to protect workers’ health.

However, the Prime Minister emphasised enterprises with thousands of workers need to strengthen preventive measures in the workplace. Doing this is contributing to the country’s anti-epidemic efforts, he said.

The head of the Government applauded many corporations that have taken appropriate directions and measures to develop but asked private businesses to contribute to ensuring supply of food and essential goods to people without sudden price hikes.

“We have to attain a double targets, to successfully fight the pandemic and stabilise the socio-economic situation,” Phúc said.

The Government set a GDP growth target of 6.8 per cent in 2020. However, according to two scenarios of the Ministry of Investment and Planning, if the Covid-19 pandemic is contained in the first quarter, Việt Nam’s GDP would grow by 6.27 per cent by year-end, while if the pandemic lasted into the second quarter, the economy would expand 6.09 per cent.

At the meeting, the Prime Minister also listened to difficulties faced by businesses due to the prolonged pandemic as well as gathered their opinions and contribution to policies in hopes of creating a better investment and business environment for private business development and fine-tuning policy to make it more practical. — VNS