According to Dau
tu, the highest percentage of apartments used as business premises
in the Hanoi
area are found in Trung Hoa-Nhan Chinh, My Dinh and Linh Dam
neighborhoods, in some areas reaching 50 percent of the units. The investment newspaper cites a number of examples to
prove its point.
The Hanoi Planning and
Investment Department counts about 82,000 businesses in Hanoi, including
1200 foreign invested enterprises, nearly 700 state-owned firms and
80,000 small and medium enterprises. If only one-fourth of these do
business from rented apartments, this means that 20,000 enterprises in
the capital alone will suffer from the the Ministry of Construction’s
Instruction #2544 of 19 November 2009.
A lot of businesses are
preparing to move from the apartments which have been their
headquarters. They are moving heaven and earth to
find suitable offices. Of course, they will have to spend a big sum of
money for ‘actual offices’.
Nguyen Thanh Hung, Director
of Hung Ha Trade and Service Company said that his company’s office
rent costs will increase by two or three times. It
can lease a 75 to 100 square meter apartment in a residential building
for $1000 to $1500 per month, while it will have to pay $1000 to $2000
more for the same space in an office building.
Then there’s the cost of
moving, from ten to thirty million dong. Other
expenses including the equipment installation and ‘virtual’ expenses
will also be costly. Altogether, businesses
forced to rent a real office face several hundred million dong more in
costs every year.
However, money is not the
only obstacle in moving office. These small
companies will have to apply for a new business certificate, which will
take time as well as money. Lawyer Nguyen Quan
Thanh of the Hoa Binh Bar Association says that when moving head offices
to other places, enterprises must show a lots of original documents and
submit copies to the business registration office.
Thanh said that the
procedures are not really complicated, but they always take time. In
some cases, the changes in the head offices may influence the business
results of the enterprises and affect relationships between the
enterprises and loyal clients.
More work
for management agencies
Of course, when thousands
of businesses move their head offices at the same time, there will be a
lot of work for management agencies too.
A senior officer of the
Hanoi Planning and Investment Department (who requested anonymity) said
that relevant agencies will have to sit together to discuss the detailed
process for granting business certificates. He said that the government
offices will be overloaded if thousands of businesses move at the same
time, and that it is thus necessary to stipulate the roadmap for
relocation.
Taxation agencies seem not
to suffer headaches as acute as the agencies that grant business
certificates, because enterprises will still pay tax via the electronic
system. However, enterprises will have to follow the procedures relating
to issuing bills and make tax finalization before relocating their
principal place of business.
This will be a burden on
businesses, because if they cannot complete this work, they will not be
able to issue bills and make transactions with partners.
As such, there will be a
lot of things to do when thousands of businesses will have to relocate
their offices and it is clear that relevant agencies ought to sit
together to discuss ways to settle the problems in the quickest and
least costly way.