10. Impacts of climate change on Small Medium Enterprises in the Red River delta

Abstract

SMEs in Vietnam have many difficulties in competing for development, accessing capital, and expanding production and business compared to other countries in the region and the world. This was due to natural disasters and climate change, leading to not really realizing their full potential. In this study, we conducted a sociological survey with 40 SMEs in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, industry and manufacture, trade and service, and mining in the Red River Delta region. The results showed that SMEs have experienced with weather and climate change in recent years. Natural disasters and climate change caused the decrease of revenue (87.5 %); business interruption (60 %). The number of days of business interruption was less than 5 days (85 %). In which, SMEs in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and mining were highly affected. Climate change response activities are mainly in adjusting business strategies (82.5 %), adjusting working hours (80 %), upgrading production technology (45 %) and strengthening and repairing factories (35 %). In addition, over 50 % of SMEs can find the opportunities from climate change. SMEs rated very positively about the government's support in disaster response and climate change. In which, providing early weather warning received a high consensus rate (82.5 %). SMEs are very willing to adjust their operations to be more environmentally friendly (87.5 % SMEs’ opinion to use environmentally friendly materials). However, the factor that promotes SME production and business activities in an environmentally friendly manner depends largely on the size of capital (82.5 % of the opinion). In addition, policies to support SMEs to overcome the impacts of climate change include: accessing information on early warning/forecast of natural disasters and climate change; building a system of legal policies related to climate change with the participation of SMEs; communicating and raising awareness of climate change for SMEs and having financial mechanism to support SMEs in the application of new environmentally - friendly technologies.