The Hanoi People’s Committee recently issued a directive on improving the city’s Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) in 2021. (Photo: nhandan.vn) For the third year in a row the capital city stood in ninth place among Vietnam’s 63 cities and provinces in the 2020 PCI rankings, with a total score of 66.93 points, up 1.13 points from 2019.
The rankings were unveiled earlier this year by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Among the 10 sub-indexes, the capital earned its highest score, 7.93 points, in the “time costs” index, followed by “labour and training” (7.85 points), “entry costs” (6.74 points), and “business support services” (6.68 points).
Hanoi has made efforts to reduce informal charges, promote fair competition, enhance transparency, and boost the proactivity of city leadership.
VCCI Chairman Vu Tien Loc described Hanoi’s continual presence in the top 10 as an encouraging result, according to the Nhan dan (People) newspaper, as the city is one of the two localities with the largest number of enterprises in Vietnam.
Its sustained position and higher score also indicates the city’s stable performance in administrative reform and improvements to its investment and business climate, he said.
Although Hanoi is viewed by many enterprises as having a good investment and business climate, the unchanged ninth place, with some sub-indexes falling, has stopped the city from reaching a higher position in the rankings, the newspaper pointed out.
For example, its “policy bias” sub-index rose from 5.39 points in 2019 to 6.06 points last year, but it ranked just 52nd among the 63 localities in this regard. “Proactivity of provincial leadership” increased only 0.1 percent to 6.06 points, putting the city at 44th place in this index.
Meanwhile, the city experienced a substantial fall in two important sub-indexes: “entry costs” (down 51 places to 61st) and “access to land” (down 15 places to 56th).
Even the “labour and training” sub-index fell slightly, by 0.06 percent to 7.85 points, ranking fourth nationwide, Nhan dan noted.
To raise the PCI ranking, the Hanoi People’s Committee has issued Directive No 14/CT-UBND on improving the city’s PCI performance in 2021.
The committee demanded that departments, sectors, and district-level authorities invest resources in dealing with the sub-indexes experiencing a downward trend and those ranking “low” or “mid-low” last year.
They were told to take drastic measures to raise the indexes of “entry costs” and “access to land”, which plunged last year.
In particular, they need to have all business registration dossiers handled online, ensure the settlement of business registration procedures completed on schedule or ahead of schedule, publicise such procedures, increase the training of civil servants to boost the quality of guidance provided to people and enterprises, and press on with streamlining land-related administrative procedures.
The northern province of Quang Ninh retained its top position in the 2020 PCI rankings, followed by the southern provinces of Dong Thap, Long An, and Binh Duong.
The PCI report has been published annually by the VCCI and the USAID since 2005 to assess the ease of doing business, economic governance, and administrative reform efforts by city and provincial governments to promote the development of the private sector.
Based on data collected from enterprises, the PCI is viewed as “the common voice” of the business community on the level of reform in various fields./.
VNA
