08/02/2021
The fight against Covid-19 in our country is at a decisive moment, when the developments of the past 3 months have shown that this is a battle that cannot be overcome quickly, while the impacts on economic activities and businesses are becoming more and more obvious…
Last week, the Associations of Textile, Footwear and Handbags, Electronic Enterprises and Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh City signed a petition to the Prime Minister, reflecting the difficulties when applying the "3 on-site" model at the request of the Ministry of Health and localities.
SUPPLY CHAINS CANNOT BE BROKEN
According to Ms. Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, Vice President of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association, most of the businesses belonging to these 4 associations have the scale of employing thousands to tens of thousands of employees. The total export turnover of the four industries above reaches more than 160 billion USD/year, accounting for nearly 60% of export turnover of the country, contributing to the livelihood of over 8 million workers. Besides, there are about 12.5 million people indirectly involved in the supply chain serving the above industries.
In 2020, Vietnam's exports accelerated thanks to taking advantage of orders moved from areas that were closed for production due to epidemics such as Eastern Europe and South America, now the opposite situation is likely to happen. There have been signs that many textile and footwear customers have stopped placing new orders or are considering moving orders to other regions.
"If production is stopped, businesses will lose workers, it will be very difficult to recruit again later. Continuing to produce will retain workers as well as take care of their welfare, reducing pressure on the Government and local" - Ms. Xuan emphasized.
From another perspective, according to data from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in the first 7 months of the year, nearly 80,000 enterprises suspended their business for a definite time, stopped operating or waited for dissolution, which increased by more than 25% over the same period in 2020.
The application of strict measures to limit free movement of people is necessary to prevent the spread of the disease. However, the measures of social distancing, restricting circulation and transporting goods by localities are not consistent, causing many difficulties for businesses in the implementation process, thereby disrupting the supply chain and seriously affecting the production and business activities of enterprises. Typically, raw materials for production are assessed by many localities as not being "essential goods", so they are not able to be transported or circulated, affecting the production activities
Even when the Government, Ministries and sectors promulgate measures to remove the problem, the situation in some places, sometimes at local key points that do not comply with the spirit of the Government, still occurs.
In a recent dispatch to localities, the Ministry of Industry and Trade affirmed that "continuous maintenance of the value chains and supply chains of the processing and manufacturing industries is extremely important in the short term as well as ensuring long-term economic development of the country."
If it has to close for half a month or a month, the business can still endure. But if they have to close for a longer time, businesses will not be able to overcome the broken point, even if the epidemic is over, they will not be able to recover.
Enterprises are the components that maintain and create the driving force for socio-economic development. Therefore, in any situation, it is always necessary to consider the maintenance of business operations.
In other words, businesses, manufacturing plants and service facilities also need to be protected, through measures to minimize the impact and damage from challenges, in this case, preventive measures against Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the epidemic situation in the past months in the southern provinces shows that the nature of this epidemic is different from the previous ones. With the Delta variant, the transmission mechanism of the virus also seems to be different. It is not a droplet transmission like the first SARS-CoV-2, but it seems that this virus can remain suspended in the air and thus spread farther and wider. It also means that keeping a distance of 2 meters is not enough to be safe, and many infected people will not know the source of the infection because tracing does not show contact with F0 or even F1. This is also consistent with the epidemiological reality in the southern provinces in recent times when the number of infections with unknown sources of infection is increasing.
At a meeting of the Government with localities on the morning of July 30, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh reminded us that even after vaccination, we must not be subjective. Vaccination does not mean immunity to the virus, the vaccine only helps to relieve symptoms and reduce mortality. People who are vaccinated when infected with the virus can still be a source of infection for others, if the infected person is in a high-risk group (older, with underlying medical conditions) and has not been vaccinated, the possibility of that person becoming seriously ill is high. In fact, even the UK is a leading country in vaccination, but there are still days when the number of infections increases to more than 50,000 cases a day.
A business owner in Binh Duong is worried: The number of infections in Binh Duong has approximately the same number of days as Ho Chi Minh City while the population is small, so in terms of population density, the infection rate in Binh Duong is very high. Meanwhile, the province has many industrial parks, manufacturing enterprises and logistics centers. If the epidemic continues like this, Binh Duong's third export position in the country will certainly not be maintained.
When the southern provinces put out the "3 on-site" requirement, most businesses that couldn't meet them had to close down. A few that can meet it are now at risk of becoming an outbreak, causing other businesses that are applying "3 on-site" to consider closing as well.
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam during his recent field trip also said that the epidemic is penetrating widely and deeply in localities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An, and the time to stamp out the epidemic must be calculated by month.
This shows the complex nature of the fight against Covid-19 this time and the ability to step out of this battle cannot be as quickly as in previous epidemics.
If the epidemic continues for a long time and all production activities are suspended, the consequences for the economy and society will be severe. So we have to find a way to live with the epidemic, produce even when there is an epidemic! That is also the plea of the director in Binh Duong mentioned above.
Therefore, the economy also needs to be vaccinated, and vaccines here are nothing more than consistent policies and measures from the central to local levels to encourage and support businesses.
In the decisive moment, the introduction of a new approach and an appropriate strategy will make the epidemic prevention and control process more effective, from both a health and economic perspective.
First of all, we need to recognize that anti-epidemic is a process that can take a long time. In order to maintain a long-term fighting strength against the epidemic, it is necessary for the front-line forces including doctors, nurses, nurses and those serving at hospitals and isolation wards to rest and recover.
In the previous stage, every F0 infection was required to be hospitalized. The hospital then performed both functions: treatment and isolation. But the fact shows that 2/3 of the number of F0 have only very mild symptoms or no symptoms, keeping them in the hospital only means isolation rather than treatment, but this puts pressure on the medical staffs and other service personnel and invisibly take up the opportunity to be hospitalized for treatment of patients with more severe symptoms. Therefore, it is necessary to come up with a clear policy on allowing mild patients to self-isolate at home and monitor their health to reduce the burden of treatment and avoid overloading both medical facilities and human resources.
Because the epidemic is likely to last, it is necessary to determine both fighting the epidemic and maintaining production and economic activities to the maximum extent possible.
During the war, our predecessors practiced "farmers, soldiers". Upholding the role of industry associations, the Government assigns associations to coordinate with localities to monitor the activities of member businesses and ensure compliance with distance requirements.
The Government identifies the roles of businesses and workers in transportation and logistics as the lifeblood of the economy to ensure the circulation of goods and raw materials, thereby creating conditions for enterprises in this industry to operate similarly to manufacturing enterprises.
Covid-19 is a big exercise. Therefore, even in the future when Covid-19 is no longer a permanent threat, the lessons learned from today's strategy will still be valuable experience when the economy faces other harsh challenges in the future.
