Administration reform is considered one of the effective measures to avert impacts of the global economic crisis. To create a breakthrough in administration reform, the Government of Vietnam has composed a programme to gather innovations of simplifying administrative procedures from the public, individuals and organisations in the society.
With the target of quickly driving the Vietnamese economy out of the global financial crisis and economic recession, the programme has drastically evolved from central to local levels and from State-funded agencies and enterprises to individuals, etc.
The Master Plan of Administrative Procedure Simplification in the fields of state management for the period 2007 - 2010, which is commonly known as Project 30, was officially launched in 2007 by the Government of Vietnam. From the view point of objectives, processes and application methods, this project has many new points and breakthroughs from previous programmes and projects on administrative procedure reform.
Administration reform - Optimal solution
In the context of international economic integration, Vietnam is one of the economies that entered the world economy quite late. Therefore, to quickly catch up with the market economy norms,the Vietnamese Government always pays high attention to administration reform, in which administrative procedure reform is regarded as a breakthrough and important step.
Administration reform in general and administrative procedure simplification in particular are becoming increasingly crucial when the global economy is sliding into a deep and wide economic crisis which hurts all countries. With many strong and effective economic and financial policies, Vietnam is seen as one of the few countries in the world to moderate negative impacts of this crisis and recession. Apart from economic solutions, the Government of Vietnam has advanced administrative procedure simplification to quickly bring the Vietnamese economy into the growth path and embrace opportunities in the global economic crisis.
According to many reliable specialists and institutions in the world, through the implementation of the Project 30 and its initial successes, Vietnam is an icon in administration reform activities. Vietnam is the first country to publicise its total administrative procedures on the Internet for all people and organisations to contribute their opinions to simplify. The project includes three major phases: statistic and examination of reduced items, administrative procedure simplification, and execution of reform recommendations.
As of August 31, 2009, the entire administrative procedures of 63 provinces and cities and 24 ministries and branches in Vietnam were officially publicised on the Internet. All individuals and organisations can visit the website and raise their constructive opinions vis-à-vis administrative procedure simplification. In the first phase, the publicity of administrative procedures has helped cut out more than 1,000 duplicated and overlapped administrative procedures. Thus, the policy of administrative procedures is basically a success.
In the second phase of the Project 30, under the guideline of the Prime Minister, all ministries, branches and localities must reduce at least 30 % of administrative procedures. Under this direct and concrete instruction, the execution of this guideline is believed to be very serious. In fact, most ministries, branches and localities have expressed their determination and concrete plans to reduce 30 % of administrative procedures as instructed by the Prime Minister. The resolve to have a consistent, simple and easy-to-apply set of administrative procedures of the Government and the Prime Minister has received strong support and positive responses from the people and businesses.
To ensure the objectiveness of administrative procedure reviewing processes, the reviewing processes of the Project 30 are pre-eminent. The people and enterprises can directly contribute their opinions and review administrative procedures they will work with afterwards. At the same time, the Government has set up a special task force for administrative procedure reform of the Prime Minister and an advisory council for administrative procedure reform of the Prime Minister. Activities of the task force and the council are completely independent and free of any pressure from administrative procedure issuing and executing organs.
Businesses play a central role in administrative procedure reform
Any enterprise has to work with State policies in general and administrative procedures in particular. If policies have irrational points, there will be the consequences. Complex administrative procedures and under-the-table costs are inflicting damages on enterprises. According to a survey on business environment in Vietnam conducted by the Economic Research and Policy Centre under the Economics College( the Vietnam National University, Hanoi), an enterprise on average spends 29.1 % of its time funding to settle works in relation to administrative procedures. The rate is 44.5 % in Hanoi and 38.7 % in Ho Chi Minh City. It means businesses only have 50 – 70 % of its time to fund business administration.
Another report by the World Bank (WB) showed that Vietnamese enterprises spent most time in settling tax procedures because of procedural complexity and red tape. On average, a Vietnamese company has to pay taxes 32 times and spends 1,050 hours on tax issues, five times more than in Indonesia.
Thus, the role of businesses in examining administrative procedures in the Project 30 is a high priority. Businesses will be major contributors and they will fill in questionnaire forms. The questionnaires will cover fields the businesses are usually involved in. Through the questionnaires, the businesses can point out in details the necessity, rationality and legality of administrative procedures. Thus, the quality of administrative procedure reform reviews, or the success of the Project 30 in other words, largely depends on the cooperation of businesses.
With the Project 30, the Government has opened a public forum for all participants to raise their voices in policymaking. The business circle is placed centrally. Businesses are the beneficiaries of policies and the developer of those policies.
VCCI as representative of businesses
As a representative for the business community, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has advised the Party and the State to improve business and investment environments and support enterprises to do business. Particularly, administration reform in general and administrative procedure reform in particular are one of the top concerns of VCCI and have been actively carried out by VCCI for years. VCCI is tasked to take part in administrative procedure reform, and to assist enterprises to integrate and develop. As a member of the advisory council for administrative procedure reform of the Prime Minister, VCCI has set up a workgroup for administrative procedure reform, drawn up projects and general plans, and mobilised all resources for administrative procedure reform.
Based on urgent desires of enterprises, VCCI has registered to review four fields: tax, customs, business registration and labour relations. Although these four fields are seen as thorny matters in policymaking, they are the most time-consuming and costliest stages in their operations.
VCCI is very actively carrying out reviews of four registered fields to keep up with its schedule for reviewing. All four reviewing groups regularly hold meetings to share experience with the Task Force for Administrative Procedure Reform of Prime Minister, specialists, enterprises and business associations. All discussions are open and effective. With the slogan “Simplifying administrative procedures for enterprises”, all reviewing groups of VCCI are resolute to do their best to build a set of administrative procedures fitting the legitimate aspirations of enterprises.
Pham Gia Tuc - Vice President of VCCI
Vietnamese
