Vietnam has successfully developed and implemented some tasks towards sustainable development. However, the outcomes remain short of their potential. The economic development level is still low in the world context, including regional nations. Worryingly, Vietnam continues to slip in ranking on global competition surveys.
Shortcomings
Speaking at the Vietnam Corporate Sustainability Forum 2014, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said, from three elements of sustainable development, namely economy, society and environment, it is clear that a lot of issues need to be addressed.”
He said that, economically, the efficiency and competitiveness of Vietnam and its businesses remain generally low. Economic growth has slowed down. Economic sectors have been yet to maximise their capacity. Apart from objective causes, enterprises – the leading productive force of the nation – still have internal subjective reasons like high consumption rate of energy and materials for each unit made, low product added value, and lower social labour productivity than regional countries. A majority of Vietnamese enterprises are incapable of pursuing sustainable competitiveness as they lack long-term investment for input sources, for environmental protection systems, for administration and production method improvements to reduce product prices.
Socially, although Vietnam belongs to the group of countries with high human development index (HDI), education and training quality has not met development needs, particularly training high-level human resources. Training has not really based on social demand. Teaching and learning programmes, contents and methods are obsolete and slow to change to new situations. Training is not based on real demand of domains and industries. Education socialisation is ineffective. The involvement of enterprises in training is limited.
Employment rate remains high. Wage and income policies do not create motivations for workers to devote to their jobs. Livelihoods of many people, particularly those in remote areas, remain poor. Hunger eradication and poverty reduction are not sustainable. The rate of re-impoverishment remains high. Income gap between the rich and the poor tends to be widened. Enterprises are unable to utilise local labour force. Not many enterprises are engaged in inclusive business models to give employment opportunities for the poor, he said.
Vietnam has to suffer some consequences due to its neglect of some sustainable development criteria. For example, healthcare quality is low; health system and health service quality fail to meet the demand of people. Health businesses are primarily targeting at high-income earners. Hygiene and food safety are not tightly controlled. Illegal trade in counterfeits and substandard products remain rampant, causing unfair competition.
Environmentally, water, soil and air pollution are alarmingly serious in some places. Vietnam is yet to mobilise many resources for protecting the ecological environment and people’s living environment. There is the risk of forest quality degradation while deforestation in some areas worsens. Vietnam lacks practical measures to deal with climate change. Local authorities and citizens, including businesses, are not fully aware of climate change impacts and thus lack of appropriate response measures. No smart investment for climate change has been made.
New approach
To thoroughly and comprehensively solve the above issues, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said there is a real need to change from approach step to planning stage, priority selection, resource mobilisation and method for deployment of activities and projects. Such changes need to be made, not only in State agencies but also in every economic entity, led by enterprises.
Enterprises need full awareness of opportunities and challenges posed by sustainable development trend. Each business needs to create value chain not only for itself but also for the community and for the country. To do so, they must, first of all, respect and understand social needs, not just sacrificing long-term needs to satisfy immediate ones.
Private enterprises need to broaden participation in groundbreaking fields like education and health, helping develop human resources, particularly high-quality human resources. This is an extremely important breakthrough stage to enhance the country’s competitiveness, create synergy, and influence decisions on economic development, social stability and environmental protection for the sake of sustainable development strategy. It is necessary to integrate human resource development with scientific and technological development and application to tap brainpower potentials of workers, and in turn, turn those potentials into achievements of scientific and technological application and creation.
Enterprises need to improve production efficiency by integrating and balancing profit and non-profit, promoting internal potentials and tapping potentials not fully recognised by the public, building and developing new business models like social enterprise and inclusive business. By doing so, enterprises will open new directions for themselves while contributing to liberate labour force for the society and address practical community issues.
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam concluded that the Government will constantly encourage and support businesses by perfecting institutions, promoting the ownership of the people, accelerating State-owned enterprise restructuring, consistently implementing market price regimes for all goods and services, creating a fairly competitive, transparent, and favourable business environment as the Prime Minister directed.
Huong Giang
Đăng ký: VietNam News