On July 29 (Thursday), CEEC together with other Chambers and Business Associations, organized the webinar “Mid Year Business Environment Review”, giving practical insights on the business environment in Vietnam in the first half of 2021. Over 80 people joined the webinar, which featured as guest speakers Commercial Director at Kantar WorldPanel Vietnam – Mr. Peter Christou, Tax & Legal Partner at Mazars Vietnam – Mr. Minh Nguyen, and Managing Partner at Acclime Vietnam – Mr. Matthew Lourey.
Mr. Vlad Savin – CEEC’s Vice-Chairman opened the webinar by briefly introducing CEEC in general and going through the webinar’s content range, which includes the impacts of Covid-19 with the cross-industry overview, commercial compliance provisions relevant for investors in Vietnam and current regulatory changes, updates and FDI environment status, with projections of the end of the year.
Ever since the emergence of Covid-19 in Vietnam, economic growth has been heavily affected. Especially at the time of the first and second wave in 2020, the idea of fighting against Covid-19 while sustaining the economy was relatively challenging. Yet, Mr. Peter Christou claimed that Vietnam has been gradually recovering from the negative impacts of Covid-19.
He also listed out the six trends that have been shaped by different brands, aiming to adapt to the Covid situation. Even though some of them might be facing interruption due to the Government’s regulations, these trends are expected to be ongoing till the end of 2021.
- Shifting to value offer
- Elevating healthier lifestyle
- More in-home cooking
- Booming delivery service
- E-commerce
- Experience
Later, Mr. Minh Nguyen provided some general updates from the Government side including the reform of administrative procedures. The National Public Service Portal is now under construction, planning to be a public database as well as a consultancy public portal. Investors or business leaders can freely access the database searching for the business conditions or administrative requirements. Additionally, the Portal will enable people to leave comments and share personal thoughts on the newly introduced regulations, which helps the Government to evaluate their effectiveness.
Mr. Minh Nguyen also named the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the tariff reduction as the incentives for foreign investors coming into Vietnam. According to him, the Ministry of Planning and Investment is preparing the Special Incentives (draft) for huge projects including domestic value chain, technology transfer, etc.
Having gone through more than 3 months of the latest wave, the national socio-economy has suffered severe damage as factories and stores are forced to be closed. Thus, workers and employees in the quarantined regions are also heavily affected. Great support from the Government has been pointed out by Mr. Matthew Lourey, for example, reduction/ deferral of social insurance contribution, salary support for unemployed workers due to Covid-19, deferral of VAT, and CIT payments. Additionally, he emphasized the support of FDI inflows for Vietnam even in the lockdown period as foreign investors are still positive towards a long-term plan for Vietnam. However, we are not seeing the strong FDI flows themselves until borders are opened.
To conclude, Mr. Matthew stated that Vietnam is in a state of flux and the “restart” will set a path for 2022 and beyond. In the near future, Vietnam will be receiving more support from foreign customers than ever before since they have experienced Covid issues in two years. However, it is crucial for the supply chain and manufacturing to bounce back in order to safely produce and catch up with the export commitments.
In the Q&A session, our speakers helped to answer the questions related to the opportunities and challenges of a specific industry such as food&beverage, and real estate. Attendees’ concerns about the vaccination program were being addressed as well.