State agencies’ leaders have big role to play in boosting business climate improvement: lawmaker

Hanoi (VNA) – In 2022, enterprises and the wider economy generally will have many opportunities to recover and grow. However, the speed and level of recovery, as well as growth momentum, depends on how institutional reforms are carried out and how effective and timely the Government’s support measures are.

This is the opinion of Phan Duc Hieu, standing member of the 15th National Assembly (NA)’s Committee for Economic Affairs and former Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), offered forward during a recent interview with VietnamPlus.

He noted the Party, NA and Government have been exerting strong efforts to boost institutional reforms and business climate improvements.

The NA recently held an extraordinary session to adopt amendments and supplements to nine laws to remove production and business bottlenecks promptly.

Meanwhile, the Government stays persistent in making reforms, and 2022 is the eighth year in a row it has issued a resolution, Resolution No. 02/NQ-CP, on improving the business environment and the national competitiveness.

The Government has shown its resolve in raising Vietnam’s competitiveness in the World Economic Forum (WEF) rankings, with corruption control hoped to be improved by ten places, the quality of land administration index by at least one place, and small and medium firms’ access to capital by two or three places. It also targets a higher position for the country in the Global Innovation Index of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), aiming at the sub-indexes of IT infrastructure, knowledge-intensive labour recruitment and tertiary education increasing by at least five places.

However, Hieu said the improvement of the business climate has decelerated due to COVID-19, since the country had to reserve resources, time and efforts to fight against the pandemic.

The results of the business climate improvement are also uneven. For example, despite better performances in many aspects, Vietnam’s positions in some others last year were still low, or even declined, compared to 2020. For example, its ranking in the Global Innovation Index fell from 42nd to 44th place and the Corruption Perception Index from 104th to 96th.

Business climate reforms and improvement were also different among localities. Some localities made strong efforts and reaped encouraging outcomes, despite the pandemic’s impacts, but some have shown little improvement though they were not affected much.

The official stressed that the new context requires State agencies to better their capacity and service performance since if Vietnam doesn’t speed up reforms, it will lag behind other countries in the region.

Hieu expressed his belief in further improvements in the future, citing a survey conducted in 2021 by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) as showing that the burden of unofficial expenses is decreasing, and some provinces like Quang Ninh and Dong Thap have performed well in this regard.

He said that leaders of State agencies have a big role to play. If they take drastic action and thoroughly understand reform requirements and methodology, they will create momentum for reform.

He also suggested the Government set up a specialised reform division that devises, proposes and implements reforms, adding that it is also important to create a good and fair work environment which will considerably promote civil servants’ performance and subsequently fuel reforms.

The COVID-19 pandemic is forecast to remain complicated and unpredictable, but the Government has issued and implemented many effective response measures while assisting people and businesses. The NA has also promulgated Resolution No. 43/2022/QH15 on fiscal and monetary policies for the socio-economic recovery and development programme.

Restructuring is also taking place in the business sector, with many enterprises dissolved and a large number of others entering the market.

Together with other factors, these are opportunities for Vietnam and its business community to recover and develop, according to the official./.