Allowed to operate again, but some businesses said that they are in a dilemma "not opening, you will die, if you open, you will die because the more you do it, the more you lose".

"Since reopening, the restaurant has been very gloomy," commented Mr. Dominic Vu, Chairman of the Alliance for Small and Medium Enterprises. This alliance is an organization of businesses in the food and beverage, service and retail industries, which was formed in early October, in the context of the SME community facing many difficulties during the social distancing period in Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces. According to his observations, only about 10-20% of restaurants reopened.

Mr. Dominic Vu said that the cause was the sharp increase in production costs after the epidemic, but the revenue and profit were insignificant. On the other hand, anti-epidemic policies are still uncertain, with differences between localities. "These things make business owners still anxious and cautious about reopening," he said.

Many bars, beer, restaurants on Bui Vien pedestrian street have switched to selling vegetables, meat, groceries; October 5, 2021. Photo: Quynh Tran/VnExpress

Bars, beer, restaurants on Bui Vien walking street. Photo: Quynh Tran

Mr. Ly Nhat Hieu, owner of 3 high-end restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, admitted that the business is in a dilemma before reopening. "If you don't open, you die, if you open, you die because the more you do, the more you lose," he said.

Some time ago, he counted the days waiting for the city's decision to open because the 5-month shutdown during the fourth Covid-19 wave cost him billions of dong.

"The cost of renting space even though it is halved to more than 300 million a month plus the cost of maintaining and maintaining the restaurant during the past time is nearly 2 billion," he said. Although he was feverish when he woke up every day and lost money, he did not dare to pay the ground because the previous investments and repairs were also billions. He also sold cars, ran around twice to support employees when the applications to the insurance side had not been processed.

But the current situation makes him realize that reopening is not easy. Accordingly, businesses are facing a difficult problem of recruiting workers. The prolonged epidemic caused Mr. Hieu's personnel structure to be broken.

"Some employees couldn't stand it and went back to their hometown to avoid the epidemic. Some people sold noodles online, and some people ran over to work as shippers," he said. According to him, it is very difficult to recruit new employees today, especially for special and highly skilled personnel such as chefs and kitchen assistants. "It's not easy for people to go back to the city right now," he said.

Enterprises also face that the supply chain of goods has not really been smooth again, leading to both scarce and expensive goods with an increase in import prices by several tens of percent. Food delivery in the city has also become expensive. "A plate of rice before the epidemic sold for more than 120,000-130,000 hours plus the ship was more than 200,000, which was very unreasonable. We had to lower the price. The revenue was there, but the profit was zero," he shared about the situation. held out by selling online recently.

In addition, the rule that restaurants can only serve a maximum of 20 people on-site and each person must be 2m apart also makes it difficult for businesses to comply. Or the reopening also makes businesses face the most headache cost is the space. "When the restaurant was still closed, the owner couldn't afford to collect enough money. But once it's reopened, there's no reason," he said. Meanwhile, the purchasing power of the city, although reopened, is still limited when there are no tourists, workers have not returned, people tend to tighten spending.

Mr. Dang Phuc Nguyen, General Secretary of the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association (Vinafruit) also agreed with the assessment that businesses will face difficulties when returning to production.

"Opening must open synchronously. If Ho Chi Minh City opens but other provinces are still tightening, it will be difficult for businesses to produce again," Mr. Nguyen said about the root of labor, scarce and expensive goods. .

He also said that there should be a consensus on anti-epidemic measures across the country. He assessed that, despite the spirit that Vietnam is very difficult to achieve the "zero Covid-19" state, it has to gradually live with the epidemic, many localities still keep the old thinking, issue their own documents and regulations to control the epidemic. , thereby limiting the opening speed of businesses.

For example, in Hau Giang, goods entering the province must go through a transit point before they can continue while the driver has been vaccinated with two doses of vaccine. This increases unnecessary costs for businesses. "The point of view is that after vaccination, we should create conditions for people to go. We control the epidemic, not the car," he said.

On the other hand, he said that if workers have received 2 vaccines, even 1 dose, they should create conditions for people to go in and out of the province to go to work. Because if human resources are not available, the raw materials will be available even if the factory is "hands-on". According to him, if labor and goods problems are circulated smoothly, "the body will gradually revive".

Many businesses hesitate to reopen

Allowed to operate again, but some businesses said that they are in a dilemma "not opening, you will die, if you open, you will die because the more you do it, the more you lose".

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