Local firms in need of support   Goods being stacked at the Ha Bac Notrogel Fertiliser and Chemicals Company in the northern province of Bac Giang. Experts have urged the Government and the National Assembly to provide more support for a number of sectors to ensure the enterprises' development in the future. - VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam HA NOI (VNS) - The State should formulate and implement policies that will solve domestic enterprises'current difficulties in production and business to enable them to develop next year, experts said. The recommendation was made at a seminar on The Development of Viet Nam's Enterprises and The Socio-Economic Development Plan in 2015, held in HCM City on Thursday by the Viet Nam Chamber and Commerce and Industry (VCCI). At the seminar, the experts noted that the national economic situation and the production and business of domestic enterprises had shown more improvement so far this year compared with previous years. But they urged the Government and the National Assembly to provide more support for a number of sectors to ensure the enterprises' development in the future. The Hai quan online newspaper quoted Nguyen Ngoc Bao, member of the National Assembly's Economic Committee, as saying the nation has achieved its economic targets though difficulties in developing the economy remain, including macro-economic stability and control over inflation. Meanwhile, numerous difficulties have hounded domestic enterprises, noted Bao. He cited figures from the Ministry of Planning and Investment showing that 44,509 enterprises have either suspended or shut down operations in the first eight months of this year, and this represented a 12.9-per cent year-on-year increase. Figures from the ministry also showed Viet Nam had 47,450 newly-established enterprises in the first eight months of this year, representing a 9.5-per cent year-on-year decline. Also, the country's inventory of goods for the first eight months of the year surged by 13.4 per cent year-on-year while the industrial production index in some key industrial regions increased slowly. Bao urged the State to craft policies that would solve these difficulties and enable domestic enterprises to take advantage of numerous free trade agreements between Viet Nam and its partners by developing production, attracting investments and increasing exports next year. The National Assembly should also promote the setting up of legal systems for State and economic management to create a favourable business environment for attracting investment for production and business, Bao said. These should include laws on the management and use of state capital and assets of enterprises and on trading real estate, as well as amended laws on enterprise, investment and housing. The chinhphu.vn quoted Pham Thi Thu Hang, VCCI general secretary as saying that domestic enterprises were facing a reduction in scale, with medium and large enterprises on the decline. Viet Nam has five million small and medium enterprises (SMEs), about 1,000 State-owned enterprises in the process of equitisation and 1,500 foreign direct investment enterprises. The number of medium and large enterprises has accounted for four per cent of the total number of enterprises in Viet Nam. The nation lacked leading, large and medium enterprises that make use of new technology and new foreign markets to become partners of multinational companies and join the global value chain, Hang said. The State should also support SMEs to develop into medium- and large enterprises. The VCCI has also proposed that the National Assembly draft a law on small and medium enterprises to create favourable conditions for the sustainable development of SMEs and their future conversion into medium and large enterprises. The State should also craft policies that reduce the cost of entering the market for SMEs and provide reasonable financial products for them, Hang said. Doan Thi Quyen of the VCCI Enterprise Development Research Institute said domestic enterprises should undergo a thorough restructuring to improve their ability in production and business, and should have medium- and long term-development strategies, control the cost of production and business and improve their abilities in risk and corporate management. - VNS