Hanoi (VNA) -⛄ After joining a Prime Ministerial delegation visiting businesses and localities, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien held a phone talk with a number of manufacturers in Viet Nam’s southern provinces to gain a better insight into their circumstances and discuss solutions to help them maintain their production chains.

Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien reaffirmed that the Ministry of Industry and Trade always accompanies businesses and shares in their difficulties, and is listening to their proposals to gain more information and a better understanding of their actual problems and then, on that basis, will report to the Prime Minister and work with localities to identify solutions to help them resume production chains soon. Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien and the business leaders shared a view that maintaining production during the pandemic helped ensure the dual goals the Government had set. They affirmed that maintaining production is maintaining the lifeblood of the economy. The resumption of production activities not only ensures a quick economic recovery once the pandemic is brought under control, but, more importantly, provides jobs and stable incomes to workers, easing the social security burden on localities. However, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien also reminded business leaders that maintaining production must go hand-in-hand with meeting all requirements in disease prevention and the safety and health of workers. The business leaders, meanwhile, spoke of vaccinations for workers and proposed that the Ministry of Industry and Trade consider giving them priority. Sharing their concerns about the pandemic, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said that providing sufficient vaccines for the entire population is a major challenge not only for Viet Nam but also for many countries around the world. Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said the Vietnamese Government has been working hard to obtain as many doses of vaccine as possible for Vietnamese citizens. Given that vaccinations cannot be made widely available as yet, he continued, rapid testing and PCR testing for workers remain necessary. Businesses operating in industries that have a major impact on the economy and the global supply chain therefore need to coordinate with the Government to seek vaccine sources so that their workers can be given priority and production resumed quickly. Regarding the businesses’ recommendations on chain links, goods circulation, labour movements between localities, and confirmation of rules of origin, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said that the ministry will quickly introduce legal documents to guarantee consistency in implementation from the central to local levels. “The Government, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and other ministries and localities will create the best conditions possible for businesses and workers to quickly restore production while ‘living with the pandemic’,” Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said. In addition, the Government and ministries are reviewing policies to simplify administrative procedures, creating more favourable conditions for trade as well as for goods circulation. At the end of the discussion, the business leaders thanked the Government as well as the Ministry of Industry and Trade for their support. They agreed that only when enterprises can ensure the conditions for pandemic prevention and control and guarantee the safety of workers can they be permitted to restore and maintain production. In addition, depending on the pandemic situation, localities will consider allowing enterprises to produce on an appropriate scale in a spirit of complying with pandemic regulations, mapping out specific production plans, fully meeting requirements in ensuring safety, and taking measures when detecting suspected cases in the workplace./.