The Government will continue providing support for local enterprises to overcome difficulties in production and business due to the economic downturn.

The statement was made by Deputy Prime Minister Vo Van Ninh said at a Vietnam Entrepreneurs' Day celebration on October 11 in Hanoi.

While both the global and domestic economies have shown signs of recovery, they remain unstable, Ninh said.

As Vietnam seeks to integrate further into the global economy, competition is increasing, a situation that offers Vietnamese enterprises both opportunities and challenges, he said.

The Deputy PM predicted enterprises would be successful if they seized opportunities, restructured their production and business activities and improved competitive ability, management ability and quality of products.

Additionally, the Government plans to create favourable conditions for enterprises to boost sustainable development.

Vietnam has 500,000 enterprises, 15,000 cooperatives and farms and 4 million business households, excluding 40,000 enterprises that must stop their operations in the first nine months of this year, said Vu Tien Loc, chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Industry and Commerce (VCCI).

The Government has already offered significant support to enterprises, and the firms have worked hard, but these efforts were often not enough for them to weather the difficult period, Loc said.

To solve their present difficulties, he recommended enterprises build professional management systems, improve their competitive ability and restructure their operation.

On the occasion of Vietnam Entrepreneurs' Day, the VCCI honoured 100 exemplary Vietnamese entrepreneurs who obtained outstanding business achievements, made major contributions to the state budget, participated actively in social activities and created a lot of jobs from 2010 to 2012.

The award aimed to encourage the entrepreneurs to overcome challenges and develop new strategies to get out of the financial crisis.-VNA