“The district authorities have unexpectedly banned trucks, pushing us into such a sad plight,” Don said.

In 2016, Don, after 41 years of military service with the rank of colonel, together with his friends, came to Hoa Binh to seek investment opportunities. They were welcomed by the leaders of Cao Son (high mountain) commune, which, like its name, then had only deserted hills and mountains and sparsely populated areas.

They decided to establish Thuan Hoa Phat Building Material Manufacturing, a joint stock company, and invested VND200 billion in the brick manufacturing project utilizing the most advanced technology.

The production and business went very smoothly as committed by the province’s leaders.

But the district’s authorities some months ago released a decision on prohibiting trucks with tonnage of over 10 tons. As such, the road with the shortest distance, 2 kilometers long, which allowed him to carry products to the highway conveniently, has been blocked. 

So, the only choice now for the company is to carry products on the same road, but on the opposite lane, now 8 kilometers long, and go through a BOT station.

Don estimated that since the company has to follow a new road which is longer, it will have to pay at least VND1 million more for each trip, counting the fuel for vehicles and toll. With 20 trips a day, the company has to pay the additional cost of VND20 million.

However, this is not the biggest problem. More seriously, the company’s partners and truck drivers don’t want to come to the company to get bricks for delivery because of the long distance and the bad situation of the road.

“The policy is inconsistent which has led us to a dead end. We have incurred losses for a long time,” he complained.

“Previously, provincial leaders called us to make investment there, but now district leaders have banned trucks,” he said.

Asked why he did not contact the district’s leaders and have an open dialogue to solve the problem, he shook his head and said: “They don’t want to listen to us.”

Don is not alone. The changing policies set by local authorities are a burning problem that many enterprises keep complaining about. A National Assembly deputy, when speaking about the troubles caused by many local authorities, commented that "local authorities lay a red carpet for businesses, and lay nails under the carpet".

Over dozens of years, only 5-8 percent of businesses could predict if provincial authorities would enforce the law, which means the majority of businesses could not anticipate how policies would change, and, therefore, could not plan their business strategies.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), in a recent report, concluded that the resilience of domestic enterprises, after a long period of enduring the Covid-19 impact, has hit a critical point.

Businesses are now facing many problems, from loss of orders and inaccessibility to capital and land resources to indifference of local authorities and agencies.

Ask-and-grant scheme

After a thorough market survey, a businessman decided to invest VND200 billion to build a factory making consumer goods. The factory was planned to be located on an area of 2 hectares in an industrial zone (IZ). The investor then wrapped up negotiations with the IZ developer on land rents and related issues.

Under current laws, manufacturing consumer goods is not listed among conditional business fields, so the investment registration certificates and other documents are granted by the provincial IZ management board.

At the first meeting with the representative of the management board, he was surprised as he was asked to present documents he could not obtain.

“We will only grant a certificate if there is a document on policy approval from the provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee. This is for safety’s sake. If not, we are at risk of violating certain regulations that we don’t know,” the representative told him.

At the second meeting, the official said before submitting the document to ask for policy approval, the management board would need to convene a meeting with the provincial Party Committee, People’s Committee and representatives from agencies and branches, where he will have to report about his investment.

“Only if they (the agencies) turn the green light on will we be able to submit the document for ‘policy approval’,” the official said.

However, the meeting was never organized. And because of this, the investment could not proceed.

Tuan Nguyen