Đồng Tháp seeks to create conditions for workers to start businesses

Workers attend a job fair in Đồng Tháp Province's Cao Lãnh City. — Photo baodongthap.vn

ĐỒNG THÁP — Đồng Tháp Province is trying to encourage and create favourable conditions for labourer who work abroad to confidently return to the province to start their own business.

Bùi Thị Viko, from Cao Lãnh City, said: "Realising that the opportunity to work abroad could help me accumulate experience and capital to return home to start a business, three years ago I made a breakthrough decision to work in Japan.”

"Through the guidance of the Employment Service Centre of Đồng Tháp, I went to work under a contract in Japan for three years. After years of hard work, I have accumulated a lot of experience and capital. Realising that the demand for beauty in my country is increasing, I decided to use all my savings to open a beauty care service in Đồng Tháp."

Viko now owns two beauty care facilities in Đồng Tháp and Bình Thuận Province's Phan Thiết City after a period of learning, cultivating and many failures. Viko has also taught many other workers in the localities the skills to open their own businesses.

Trang Thị Hồng Thắm from Lai Vung District helped her family escape poverty and saved more than VNĐ700 million (US$35,000) to pay off debts and build a new house for her family after four years of working in Japan.

She was recruited after returning home by human resource companies to impart experience and teach Japanese for a stable income in HCM City.

She is still hesitant about her own experience so she is not confident to start a business.

“To be able to start a business in the future, I will continue to equip myself with more knowledge about the operating procedures of a business to ​​establish a foreign language centre, but in fact I do not yet fully understand business establishment procedures, preferential loans for investment and tax exemptions.”

Trần Văn Phổ from Lấp Vò District said he had saved a large amount of capital after years of working abroad. He still had capital to start a business after helping his family escape poverty and build a house. However, he still did not have a clear direction for starting a business and did not know where to start.

Phổ hopes that Đồng Tháp Province's leaders will have more specific measures and instructions to support workers who have returned home to implement their startup ideas.

He also hopes that the provincial government will provide training courses on business management skills for workers like him.

According to statistics from the Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, Đồng Tháp Province has nearly 5,000 labourers working abroad under contracts that generate foreign currency revenue of more than VNĐ1.2 trillion ($47.5 million) each year for the province.

Therefore, in order to create favourable conditions for these workers to confidently start a business when returning home, the province has many policies and preferential loan programmes for starting a business in many fields, including maximum loans for individuals of VNĐ300 million ($15,000), loans for groups of individuals of VNĐ500 million ($25,000) and business loans of VNĐ1 billion ($50,000).

Đồng Tháp Province's workers go abroad to work. — Photo laodong.vn

Mai Thanh Nghị, director of the Centre for Enterprise Support and Startups of the province, said: “Đồng Tháp Provincial government will create connections within business associations, with the mindset that large, leading businesses will accompany young entrepreneurs from their infancy to the next stage of development."

Phạm Việt Công, director of the provincial Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said that the province will continue to help workers to overcome difficulties and obstacles in starting a business by promptly providing incentive policies, training courses in start-up knowledge, consulting services and support capital, and connecting with organisations and incubators. — VNS