This is the affirmation of Mr Pham Gia Tuc, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), when he talked about administrative procedure reform.
Functioning as a member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform, what activities has VCCI done to support enterprises?
Before the urgent requirements of the doi moi (renovation) and international economic integration process, the Prime Minister issued the Decision No. 30/QD-TTg dated January 10, 2007 to approve the scheme on simplification of administrative procedures in the state management domains in the 2007-2010 period and establish the Steering Committee, the Task Force and the Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform (ACAPR) to enact the scheme. VCCI was named a member of the Prime Minister’s ACAPR.
Being a national organisation which assembles and represents the business community, employers and business associations of all economic sectors in Vietnam, VCCI has implemented many activities to advise the Party and the State on improving business and investment climates and supporting enterprises to boost production and business operations, which cover administrative reform in general and administrative procedure reform in particular. This means that it is not until it holds the membership of the Prime Minister’s ACAPR does VCCI carry out administrative procedure reform activities to support enterprises. This is an important and consistent task of VCCI. However, being a member of the council, VCCI will put on top the task of taking part in administrative procedure reform and supporting enterprises to integrate and develop.
VCCI has set up a working group and built a master project and plans to implement the task of administrative procedure reform. The core activities of the working group are to organise talks and seminars for enterprises with ministries, branches, local authorities to discuss about administrative procedure reform in the fields of tax, customs, land, import, export and construction. It also conducts surveys on enterprises in branches, fields and localities with administrative procedure problems, appraises the quality of administrative procedure and the effort to reform administrative procedures, gathers enterprises’ opinions about administrative procedure reform and expands the work of propagandising administrative procedure reform.
In the past, VCCI has carried out many effective programmes to support localities to improve business climate and reform administrative procedures to facilitate business operations. Could you talk about some of the results?
Through surveys and investigations conducted by VCCI, the hardest difficulties against enterprises are capital, human resource, administrative procedure, infrastructure land and tax. Although they have different levels of difficulties, depending on local characteristics, they have the same concern over administrative procedure.
More than 75 per cent of private-run enterprises said they will invest more to expand operations if they find convenient and demand streamlined administrative procedure. Several projects have to spend 5 - 10 years completing investment procedures to kick off the construction. Therefore, the administrative procedure reform is an urgent requirement for all branches, at all levels and in all fields.
To support localities to streamline business climate and create favourable conditions for business operations, VCCI signed cooperative agreements with many provinces and cities to apply economic and business development programmes and administrative procedure reform programmes to attract more investment capital. Annually, VCCI conducts surveys and releases the provincial competitiveness index (PCI) to provide a gauge for provinces and cities to boost their capabilities in economic governance, business environment improvement, administrative procedure reform and facilitate business operations.
VCCI has actively coordinated with provinces and cities to observe administrative procedures related to operations of enterprises and gather opinions of enterprises about administrative formalities to find out simpler options, eliminate complicated and troublesome procedures, and apply one-door regime. VCCI also regularly coordinates with localities to hold conferences and seminars with enterprises to discuss measures to solve difficulties in administrative procedures.
Through such activities, cooperative relationships between local authorities and enterprises have been considerably improved. In fact, the business environment is normally more favourable and attractive to investors if local authorities and enterprises find common voices. Developing enterprises will contribute more to the local social and economic development.
B.T
Vietnamese
