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A growing number of Vietnamese adults, driven by the dream of becoming rich, want to start their own businesses, according to the recently released Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Vietnam Report 2015 (GEM 2015).
The report analyzed 2,000 people aged between 18 and 64 along with about 40 experts and professionals to present an overall picture of the business conditions in Vietnam.
The report showed that 73.5 percent of respondents considered entrepreneurship as a good career choice, but 45.6 percent of those surveyed were worried that their start-ups could fail and only 22.3 percent said they would start a business in the near future.
Vietnamese people have become more confident in their ability to run a profitable business as their fear of business failure fell to 45.6 percent in 2015 from 50.1 percent in 2014 and 56.7 percent in 2013.
According to the GEM report, fear of business failure is proportional to economic growth, so in more developed countries people are more likely to refrain from starting a business due to the fear of failure.
Vietnam is in a group of factor-driven countries that take advantage of cheap labor and abundant natural resources to maintain economic growth. More advanced stages include efficiency-driven and innovation-driven countries.
As Vietnam is still in the early stages of economic development, according to the report, more people are supposed to feel confident about their business success. However, compared to other countries in the same group, more Vietnamese people are likely to let their fear of failure prevent them from starting a business.
In addition, the fear of failure in Vietnam tends to be inversely proportional to age. The rate among young people aged from 18 to 34 scared of starting a business hit 55 percent, while the figure for older people aged between 35 and 64 was only 45.3 percent.
About 22.3 percent of those surveyed planned to start a business in the next three years, up from 18.2 percent in 2014 but still lower than the average of 36.5 percent in the factor-driven group.
The report found that 37.4 percent said they would start their own business as a means to make ends meet because they could have trouble finding a satisfactory job; meanwhile, 62.6 percent said that they would jump at the chance of having their own business.
Noticeably, more women are starting businesses than men, the report showed, but most do so just because they are struggling to make ends meet.
The GEM report advised Vietnam to communicate more with youngsters to boost their confidence in starting a business.
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