WP 18: Development characteristics of SME sector in Vietnam: Evidence from the Vietnam Enterprise Census 2006-2015

This paper provides an overview of development characteristics of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam over the 2006-2015 period. Employing large-scale data from the Vietnam Enterprise Census, we found that SMEs in Vietnam have experienced different development trends in two separate stages. Before 2010, number of enterprises, number of employees, total capital as well as total revenues of SME sector all enjoyed progressive increase. Since 2011, however, most of them suffered sharp decrease with different extent before showing some positive signs in 2015. Our analysis has also shown that SMEs have increased considerably in quantity but not in quality. In particular, a growing proportion of enterprises in the business sector is either micro- or small-sized; and the number of employees per enterprise has decreased over time. There have been shifts of SME labor and capital from agriculture, forestry, fisheries and manufacturing to services with a considerable number of SMEs operating in less knowledge-intensive service industries. In addition, SMEs have relatively lower business performance compared to large enterprises with respect to labor utilization, return to assets, return to equity, and return to sales. We also provide a literature review on the constraints to the sustainable development of Vietnamese SME sector, as well as review on the international experience of SME development in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Download