Vietnam makes progress in improving competitiveness

Although Vietnam has made strides in bettering the business environment and competitiveness capacity, there’s still room for improvement, heard participants at a meeting held in Hanoi on December 6.
Vietnam makes progress in improving competitiveness ảnh 1Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam speaks at a meeting organised by the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement held in Hanoi on December 6. (Photo: chinhphu.vn)
Hanoi (VNA) - Although Vietnam has made strides in bettering the business environment andcompetitiveness capacity, there’s still room for improvement, heardparticipants at a meeting held in Hanoi on December 6.

The meeting, organised bythe National Council for Sustainable Development and CompetitivenessImprovement, aimed at reviewing the implementation of the government’s effortson the issues from 2019 and assign tasks for next year.

Dau Anh Tuan, Directorof the Legal Department of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, saidresults of surveys on administrative procedure and tax procedure reform andbusiness environment improvement in 63 provinces and cities showed theproportion of enterprises with positive assessment continued to increase forthe third consecutive year.

Vietnam was placed67th out of the 141 countries in the Global Competitiveness Report2019, up 10 places compared to its 2018 ranking and also up 3.5 points, whichare the fastest increases in the world.

The country has moved upthree ranks on the 2019 Global Innovation Index (GII) to place 42nd out of129 economies around the world.

With this jump, Vietnamhas leaped 17 spots since 2016. This year’s result is also thehighest ranking Vietnam has ever achieved.

Ministries and brancheshave been aware of their responsibilities and actively participated inimproving their scores and index rankings in the fields under their management.

However, Tuan said, somepeople still worried about the pace of the reform progress.

“As reported by theWorld Bank in the Doing Business Report, Vietnam has five major administrativereforms in 2018 but with only three this year. This raises concern about apotential slowdown in renovating business environment and improvingcompetitiveness in Vietnam,” he said.

Tuan suggested theCouncil focus on supervising the effectiveness of government policies’implementation.

Phan Duc Hieu, Deputy Directorof the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), agreed, sayingoverlapping of legal documents was common.

Most of ministries onlypublicise business conditions after cutting down some of them but theydidn’t give guidance and training for localities or enforcement units as wellas monitoring the results of reform.

“Statistics from CIEMshowed that many business conditions stipulated in decrees and laws arehindering and making things difficult for business. It’s time to reviewbusiness conditions that have been recently issued but not effective,” he said.

Deputy Prime Minister VuDuc Dam, as the chair of the council, said the council needed to adoptpractical solutions to produce a more attractive and competitivenessenvironment. He also asked members of the council to quickly contribute ideasto develop a resolution for next year.

The National Council forSustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement was established in July2012, with the aim of advising the Government and the Prime Minister in guidingthe creation and implementation of strategies, policies and programmes relatingto sustainable development and competitiveness enhancement./.
VNA

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