According to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Can Tho branch, Mekong Delta with population of 17 million is a potential market (accounting for 18 – 20 per cent of the whole country’s total retail sales). However, the number of enterprises in Mekong Delta only makes up around 12 per cent of the country’s total number. The majority of regional enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises with limits in financial capacity, human resources, technology and management skills. Labourers in these enterprises are mostly untrained... Therefore, regional enterprises are at a disadvantage compared with other enterprises in other regions of the country. In Mekong Delta, the number of enterprises which employ less than 200 labourers accounts for 97.8 per cent of the total figure of the region. Meanwhile, the number of enterprises which employ less than 200 labourers in the whole country only accounts for 95.8 per cent; while regional enterprises with chartered capital of less than VND1 billion makes up 48 per cent of the total, the figure is 28 per cent in the whole country. Enterprises in Mekong Delta earn lowest profits compared to enterprises in other regions. The ratio of regional trained workforce remains small, around 14.3 per cent, while the national ratio of trained workforce is 20 per cent. Technology application in production is mostly seen in seafood processing enterprises and pharmaceutical businesses.

 

According to Le Dinh Tien, a lecturer of training programme of the Can Tho Businesses’ Association, lots of enterprises in Mekong Delta hardly compete with others due to poor management in production, quality, production cost and product price. Enterprises have not paid due attention to managers and production staff. Planning and controlling of materials in production process have remained weak. Lots of enterprises assess effectiveness of the production based on the amount of products not based on quality. Therefore, there is waste for the production. Enterprises’ competitiveness depends on there factors: product quality, flexibility, and good spending. In fact, enterprises often only pay attention to quality and quantity of products not waste of production process. Meanwhile, production cost is a decisive factor for enterprises’ competitiveness.  

 

Beside internal reasons, competitiveness of Mekong Delta enterprises is affected by external elements such as: poor infrastructure, leading to higher production cost and low competitive capacity of regional enterprises. In particular, sea transport in localities in the region remains poor, therefore enterprises must convey goods to HCM City. If Mekong Delta’ transport network were good, regional enterprises would save between US$7 - 10 per tonne of goods.  

 

According to participants addressing at the conference, to improve competitiveness of regional enterprises in the global economic integration, regional cities and provinces should pay more attention to improvement of infrastructure (seaport system, transport, administrative procedures...), and give more priorities to enterprises including creating favourable conditions for enterprises to get access to advanced technology, human resources training, proper subsidy and intellectual property protection ... Moreover, the important thing is that regional enterprises strive themselves to improve its competitiveness by technology application to reduce product price.  

Mr Tran Tuan Anh, Vice Chairman of Can Tho Municipal People’s Committee, emphasised: “Can Tho authorities has strived to given more favours for regional enterprises to better integrate into the global economy and expand activities worldwide. However, enterprises need to effectively tap their potentials to improve their competitiveness and gain a firm foothold in domestic and foreign market”.