Mr Mai Huu Tin: “According to my forecast, there will be tens of thousands of businesses more which will go bankcrupt from now till the end of this year. But most of them are small ones. They joined to the game because they thought that doing business was so easy. But now actually it’s so difficult so they give up to do as employees.”

Each session of Parliament, the role of an entrepreneur cum a member of Parliament is usually in stories between VnEconomy and Mr Mai Huu Tin – Member of Parliament, President of Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs’ Association, Chairman cum CEO of U&I Investment Corporation.

With experiences of a person who has spent more than a course of Parliament, right now, the answer of Mr Tin to the familiar issue above is “should not have entrepreneurs doing Parliament job in the future.”

From the end of the year 2011 till now, your judgments after each sessions of Parliamnet about the economic situation in general and the situation of businesses in particular have been partly duller. I really hope that your judgments have been wrong.

The reality is even worse than the judgments right?

Six months ago I said that the fulcrum for businesses was still faint. Till now many businesses don’t have any fulcrum. They need to be definitive on spririt. Living or dying depends on ourselves. If looking at this matter in a certain side that’s also a positive point.

Positive point, Sir?

Yes. Because we are following the market economy so entrepreneurs should understand clearly the market, always being careful and in doubt, never being subjective. It’s so pity that our entrepreneurs sometimes live like that, investing over the real ability, spreading and expecting too much on development.

In developed countries, the three main factors to create the development are government, businesses and civil society. The civil society in our country is still weak and needs more time to growth. The two remaining factors, therefore, should understand and co-operate better together. But now most businesses just try to protect themselves. It’s so sad to talk about this nationally.

Looking widely at the whole economy we seem to be confused when we keep calling upon the general development but not succeed in any specific fields or business lines.

Tra fish for example, no country in the world can compete the advantage with us in this field. But we still failed heavily. Farmers failed. Businesses failed. The same with rice and prawn. With that advantage we could have led the game and helped farmers get rich.

The space for monetary policy is nearly over. Financial policy is also so difficult. We’re poor so we should know how to use our narrow budget to focus on really advantageous fields which can help as many people as possible. They  should be specific industrial policies, not general ones. I want to press so.

Have the reports of government in this session shown the solutions as your expectation and reflected closely the real life?

The reports are still more beautiful than reality. And solutions are still in general as I’ve analysed above.

Supporting businesses has not been really effective till now. According to my forecast, there will be tens of thousands of businesses more which will go bankcrupt from now till the end of this year. But most of them are small ones. They joined to the game because they thought that doing business was so easy. But now actually it’s so difficult so they give up to do as employees. It’s ok if that number loses.

What matters is that if the survived ones can have enough ability to lead the future games, because when we have to fight with foreign businesses then we are also weaker than them a lot.

Many representatives said that the agriculture was the “fulcrum” of the economy, then having to focus on saving businesses, etc. With the reality like what you analysed, in your opinion, what would Parliamnet do to help the economy get out of current difficult situation?

It’s hard to discuss about a specific issue in Parliament. In this session, the most important issues were discussed much such as: correcting Constitutions, correcting the Law of Land, collecting trust tickets, etc. They all are big issues. If those issues are solved well then people and businesses also have more belief. Having belief then they can strive better.

Looking at current happenings, do you believe that the above big issues will be solved well?

Please let me not answer this question.

So please kindly answer me a not-new question, nowadays what do you think about the role of representatives who are entrepreneurs?

It depends on if their businesses are operating well or not. If their businesses are not good then their minds are just focusing on the survive of their businesses and employees.

I think in the future we should think about no longer letting entrepreneurs being members of Parliament. 100% representatives being responsible for Parliament job is the best.

According to Nguyen Thao (VnEconomy)

Translator: TM (Unigroup)