In his talk with Saigon Investment, Mr. PHAM VIET ANH shares his views on the recent trends in technology apps.
JOURNALIST: - Sir, technology applications being used by Grab, Be, Now, and Baemin are very popular and growing at a fast pace, but it seems that foreign enterprises are going even faster. What is your opinion on this matter?
Mr. PHAM VIET ANH: - The Covid-19 pandemic has caused many economic activities to be restricted, but it is also becoming a driving force in making the economy stronger. This is the reason why technology applications have the best opportunity to accelerate growth and dominate the market share. In this race, foreign companies have a higher ability to dominate due to their strong financial potential.
Considering the starting point of ideas and early stages of technologies, both domestic and foreign enterprises do not have much difference, as they closely develop services to serve the needs of consumers. However, for each enterprise to be able to grow in size requires a lot of money, especially in the stage of growth in market share.
Without capital, enterprises will naturally slow down, regardless of whether they appear first or are just entering the market. Strong capital will help businesses solve many problems about advertising, marketing, discounts to attract customers, as well as launching policies to support partners and their workers. However, the capital seems to be the weak point of domestic enterprises in the race towards digital development.
Digital technology is a global game, so businesses must accept the harsh laws of the market, and so whoever is weaker will lose. Domestic enterprises that want to be strong in this field are forced to participate in the global capital market, which is the decisive factor. Therefore, it is time for us to look at the larger macro problem for Vietnam to develop a stature capital market, so capital mobilization for enterprises will be more efficient. Currently, there is still a phenomenon that domestic technology enterprises have to locate their headquarters abroad in order to call for more favorable capital.
- Sir, as you have shared, the Covid-19 pandemic has helped in furthering the development of digital economy and ride-hailing applications have had a chance to speed up services. So when the pandemic finally passes, do you think these services will also slow down?
- From my point of view, they will not. When the pandemic passes, the growth rate of these technology applications may remain the same or slow down, but it is an inevitable trend that is here to stay. Needless to say, the speed of digital technology development depends on the development of the system of each country, because it is related to the social infrastructure.
Currently, in Vietnam and some underdeveloped countries, the digital economy is far behind countries like China, where the digital system has developed for a long time, so it has been widely developed for all industries and the whole society. Also, because we are far behind, we are now gradually perfecting institutions to better manage technology applications in order to bring benefits to the economy.
- Sir, a recent report by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor has shown that many unemployed workers are now switching to technology service enterprises. This helps workers solve initial difficulties, but in the long run, will it be wasteful for qualified young people to continue to choose this path?
- Every decision of the employee must first be considered in terms of benefits. In the pandemic, many industries have been seriously affected, with many workers losing their jobs, forcing them to switch to other jobs instead. At this time, running a motorbike taxi or joining a team of forwarders for technology companies is not a bad choice. When the pandemic is over, and the recession stops and the economy returns to the development stage, it will attract the skilled workforce who are temporarily participating in technology services again, depending on whether the income is attractive enough or not.
First, for simple workers who previously worked as factory workers, if their return is not attractive, they may still choose to work with technology firms, because working time is more flexible and income is also better. Currently, in addition to the hard income, technology delivery motorbike drivers often receive tips from customers, which is an income as well.
Second, with a trained workforce such as bachelors and masters degrees, it is also impossible to ignore the problem of income. There are regrets that if these workers do not come back, they will lose their previously trained knowledge. However, we need to understand that any industry that develops also creates more jobs, and if all benefits are comparable, workers also have the right to compare. Some people will return to work if they think that using brain is useful with the condition of an attractive income, and at the same time, others continue to choose freelance jobs. We want trained labor to use their right profession or to use their trained knowledge, and the most important thing is to develop industries, thereby creating many jobs with good income for workers.
Currently,those working for technology service enterprises do not have the required remuneration policies, which is a disadvantage for them. They accept a flexible job, which is easy to join and easy to withdraw from, but it will be difficult to have policies in such jobs. When employees join technology companies, if they want to secure their future, they can buy voluntary pension insurance, or any type of insurance for themselves.
- Thank you very much.
