The Ministry of Finance is currently gathering feedback on the draft amended Law on Support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with several notable proposals aimed at driving this sector to develop rapidly and sustainably.

Production at a small and medium entreprise in Long Binh Ward

For enterprises, accessing capital, land premises, and production technology are core elements. These aforementioned issues are being calculated and proposed by authorities to open more avenues for the business community to benefit from incentive policies.

Expanding Opportunities to Access Capital

Under the current Law on Support for SMEs, the scale of an SME is determined based on multiple criteria including: the annual average number of employees participating in social insurance, total capital, or total revenue of the preceding year. In the draft currently being developed, the method for determining enterprise scale is oriented toward simplification, prioritizing the use of the annual total revenue criterion to facilitate easy cross-referencing with tax data, insurance, and other state management systems. The most critical basis to determine whether an enterprise falls into the supported group, the extent of support it receives, and whether it qualifies to continue receiving support is its annual total revenue.

The draft also expands the definition of priority entities for support policies, including:

• SMEs owned by persons with disabilities or ethnic minorities.

• Sustainable and inclusive businesses.

• Enterprises applying ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) standards.

These new proposals show a clear priority toward sustainable development. Accordingly, enterprises are evaluated not only by revenue scale, workforce size, or total capital, but also by how they create value for society, the environment, and the community. Simultaneously, it targets the operational nature of the business, such as utilizing labor in compliance with regulations, having eco-friendly policies, controlling emissions, tracing product origins, maintaining transparent internal governance, protecting personal data, and complying with the law.

Regarding the issue of accessing capital, the Ministry of Finance proposes an incentive mechanism for credit institutions to lend to SMEs based on diversifying forms of loan collateral. Accordingly, besides tangible assets like real estate, enterprises can use future-formed asets, property rights, intellectual property rights, digital assets, and vỉrtual assets... to secure loans.

According to Dr. Tran Quy, Director of the Vietnam Institute for Digital Economy Development, SMEs account for more than 98% of total operating enterprises and contribute about 40% of GDP, yet they only access around 19–20% of the economy's total credit outstanding. The root cause is that up to 93.5% of bank loans require real estate as collateral. Therefore, the proposal to diversify collateral assets—bringing property rights, intellectual property rights, intangible assets, and digital assets into the legal list for borrowing capital—carries immense constructive significance. If deployed synchronously, this mechanism will spark a revolution in the innovation ecosystem.

Along with expectations of untying the credit access knot, the draft amended Law on Support for SMEs also aims to shift the management approach from "pre-inspection" to " post-inspection" based in output results. This is highly anticipated as it allows enterprises to dedicate time to focusing on business instead of worrying about "coping" with administrative procedures.

Expectations for Practical Effectiveness

Vietnam currently has over 1 million enterprises, but the vast majority are small, medium, or even micro-sized. Despite holding substantial potential, the domestic business community still faces many barriers to growing and expanding into domestic and international markets. According to experts, the effectiveness of support policies does not lie in having more programs, but rather in the actual capability of enterprises to access resources. With recent policy innovations in the private economy, the business community expects to receive a boost in resources so that implementation becomes more substantive.

According to the Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Ho Sy Hung, with this draft amended Law on Support for SMEs, policy formulation has become specific and carries practical meaning for businesses. Accordingly, enterprises can research and register to benefit from specific policies with clearly defined support levels right within the law, instead of stopping at general principles that are difficult to put into practice.

In Dong Nai, accessing capital holds particularly vital significance as the city is one of the major industrial hubs, opening up opportunities for SMEs to access and supply components and products to large manufacturers. Many local enterprises are participating in sectors such as supporting industries, mechanical manufacturing, processing, logistics, and industrial services. To upgrade production and meet the requirements of giant corporations, enterprises need medium- and long-term capital sources to invest in workshops, machinery, technology, and management.

However, for small-scale enterprises, borrowing capital to invest in expansion often encounters difficulties due to requirements regarding collateral, credit history, or business plan formulation capacity. The new regulations in the draft law, especially reinforcing the credit guarantee mechanism, can create more room for Dong Nai enterprises to access formal capital sources instead of depending heavily on equity. According to Mr. Dang Quoc Nghi, Chairman of the Dong Nai Young Entrepreneurs Association and Director of Rong Nam Viet One Member Co., Ltd (Tam Hiep Ward), when these institutional "bottlenecks"—especially regarding capital—are cleared, local enterprises will gain better conditions to invest in technological innovation, improve productivity, and integrate deeper into domestic and international supply chains.

Vương Thế

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/