Staff at Bac Giang's provincial centre for public administration services. (Photo: baobacgiang.com.vn)Bac Giang (VNA) – Bac Giang has been making all possible efforts to improve its Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) this year, according to the northern province’s People’s Committee.
Bac Giang aims for 66.33 points in the 2021 PCI, 2.35 points higher than its score in the previous year’s PCI, and for continuing to remain among the group of “fairly good” performers in terms of economic management.
To this end, the province will work to raise the scores of sub-indices, with particular focus placed on improving five sub-indices declining last year, namely Transparency and Access to Information, Land Access and Security of Tenure, Proactivity of Provincial Leadership, Labor and Training, and Legal Institutions.
To raise the Transparency and Access to Information sub-index, Bac Giang plans to assign greater responsibility for disclosing information and responding to citizens and businesses’ inquiries on officials. It will publicize 100 percent of tax-relating administrative procedures, fees, and documents on planning, legal affairs, provincial budget on its official portals.
In terms of Land Access and Security of Tenure, the province will review public administrative procedures on land to streamline the time and paperwork needed to handle them. It will also develop mechanisms for the establishment of State-managed land bank, particularly in planning industrial areas, and provide investors with easier access to land and facilitate them speeding up the progress of projects.
Regarding Proactivity of Provincial Leadership, Bac Giang will place higher responsibility on leaders of local departments, agencies and administrations in enhancing business environment and promote its reputation as a dynamic and friendly administration.
Additionally, the province will strengthen relations between local administration and businesses through conferences, workshops and meetings to help them remove difficulties. It intends to diversify its communication channels to receive feedback and recommendations from investors and enterprises and actively learn from experience and good practices of other localities who have performed excellently in PCI.
To raise the Labour and Training index, Bac Giang is developing a long-term plan to attract high-quality workforce to work in the province and enhance the effectiveness of job placement, vocational training and general education.
With respect to Legal Institutions, the province will adopt a favourable mechanism for enterprises to file petitions and complaints about corruption, power abuse and misconduct while improving the quality of judicial services, and maintaining local social order and security to protect enterprises’ properties.
Bac Giang scored 63.98 points in PCI last year, 0.44 point higher than the country’s average but down 0.49 point from 2019. Despite that, its ranking climbed 13 places from a year earlier to 27th out of 63 cities and provinces.
The PCI report has been published annually since 2005 by the VCCI and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to assess the ease of doing business, economic governance and administrative reform efforts by provincial and city governments to promote the development of the private sector.
The overall PCI comprises ten sub-indices, reflecting economic governance areas that affect private sector development. A province that is considered to perform well on the PCI is the one that has: 1) low entry costs for business start-up; 2) easy access to land and security of business premises; 3) a transparent business environment and equitable business information; 4) minimal informal charges; 5) has limited time requirements for bureaucratic procedures and inspections; 6) limit crowding out of private activity from policy biases toward state, foreign, or connected firms; 7) proactive and creative provincial leadership in solving problems for enterprises; 8) developed and high-quality business support services; 9) sound labor training policies; and 10) fair and effective legal procedures for dispute resolution.
The PCI 2020 report was based on the response of nearly 12,300 enterprises, including more than 10,700 private enterprises operating across 63 provinces and cities, and nearly 1,600 foreign-direct-investment (FDI) firms in 22 localities. It has been viewed as ‘the common voice’ of the business community on the level of reform in various fields./.
