FDI, domestic sector need better balance

The development of the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector and the domestic business sector next year need to be better balance, Head of the Party Central Committee's Economic Commission Vuong Dinh Hue said.

At a recent discussion in group by National Assembly delegates, Hue said the country's development in 2015 still depended on the FDI sector while domestic businesses still faced many difficulties, particularly businesses operating in the fields of agriculture, services and tourism.

In order to tackle the difference in development of the two sectors, Hue said it was necessary to use FDI, focusing on businesses that already had a good value chain, good technology and good management.

He noted that attention should be paid to small- and medium-sized FDI businesses to use technology and experiences of other countries. It should be noted that there are not many big corporations that invested billions of US dollars in Vietnam like Samsung group while it was said that this was now the era of small- and medium-sized businesses.

It was also essential to take measures to boost development and improve competitiveness of domestic businesses, he said. There should have had preferential policies and support mechanisms to boost the domestic sector like the FDI sector.

The State should quickly build and issue the law on supporting small- and medium-sized businesses as well as provide guidelines to help the business community effectively implement the revised Laws on Investment and Businesses, he said.

Promoting the national startup spirit and building a national startup programme was needed, he said. However, it would require speeding up research and innovation and mechanisms to set up the Government risk investment fund as well as to attract risk investment funds both inside and outside the country, he said.

"I hope there will be a new investment wave in Vietnam," he said.

Another measure was to boost linkages between FDI and domestic businesses, Hue said. For example, FDI businesses who wanted to get preferential investment policies are required to have policies to connect with domestic businesses such as using domestic businesses as satellites to develop supporting industries.

In the first six months of 2015, FDI reached an export value of 52.5 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 20 percent, according to the Customs General Department.

Meanwhile, the domestic sector posted an export value of 25.2 billion USD during the period, a year-on-year decrease of 8.4 percent.

During the period, the FDI sector gained a trade surplus of 4.4 billion USD while the domestic sector's trade deficit reached 7.4 billion USD.-VNA