Northern Phu Tho province will dismiss any civil servant or government official whose performance receives a high number of complaints from individuals and businesses in a bid to promote its Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI).

Phu Tho jumped 15 places to reach the 39 th position in the 2014 PCI rankings of the 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam.

Despite these fair improvements, Phu Tho saw its scores in three out of the 10 PCI sub-indexes decline - namely proactivity, land access and tenure, and informal financial charges.

By dismissing irresponsible individuals, the province hopes civil servants’ sense of responsibility will be raised while leaders of local State agencies will conduct regular examinations to check their competence.

The provincial People’s Committee has ordered agencies to remove overlapping and expired legal documents and quickly update legal regulations on their websites and at their offices.

Notably, the provincial Department of Planning and Investment has been assigned as the sole agency implementing the “one-stop shop” mechanism. Accordingly, the department will process all investment procedures for province-wide projects, and investors only have to file dossiers and receive outcomes at the agency’s “one-stop shop” section.

The time to process investment-related procedures will be minimised to provide the best possible conditions for investors. For example, investment registration procedures must be completed within three days, or provincial authorities must grant investment licenses within 17 days.

To facilitate land access, provincial agencies will publicise its land use planning and land prices along with investment policies and incentives on their online portals.

Phu Tho-based banks have been asked to make it easier for companies to get loans. Meanwhile, provincial officials have also pledged to have regular meetings with business representatives so as to promptly eliminate bottlenecks facing firms.

The PCI, administered by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, measures economic governance for business development.

The 2014 PCI report was based on the feedback of 9,859 domestic non-State enterprises and 1,491 foreign-invested firms from across Vietnam.

It considered ten sub-indexes: land access and tenure, informal charges, proactivity, entry cost, transparency, time cost, policy bias, business support services, labour training, and legal institutions.

Last year, central Da Nang city topped the rankings, followed by southern Dong Thap province, northern Lao Cai province and Ho Chi Minh City.-VNA