New policies needed to boost confidence
The National Centre of Socio-Economic Information and Forecasting is calling on the Government to devise new policies to boost business confidence.
It also urges enterprises to improve the quality of their products and services in order to enhance their competitiveness.
The centre recently conducted a survey involving about 910 enterprises operating in trade, services, manufacturing and processing in northern Bac Giang Province and the cities of Hanoi and Danang and Ho Chi Minh City.
The head of the centre’s world economic department, Luong Van Khoi, said that business confidence saw improvements in the fourth quarter of 2012 and would continue to improve in the first half of this year based on the confidence that enterprises have expressed in Government policies to stabilize the economy.
While the business status index in the manufacturing and processing sectors rose from 9 points in the third quarter to 19 points in the fourth quarter of last year, manufacturing and processing enterprises remained worried about rising input cost and stagnant demand, all of which might impact their decision to expand production, Khoi said.
To boost business confidence and stimulate the economy this year, the centre has proposed the Government continue to loosen monetary policies at a reasonable pace to increase the ability of enterprises to access capital as well as to provide guarantee for small- and –medium-sized enterprises.
Policies to accelerate demand through personal income tax reductions, subsidies and consumer promotion programmes were also needed, the centre said.
The centre advised enterprises, meanwhile, to focus on expanding export market and increasing their involvement in regional and global value chains.