Agency for Business Registration and the Ivory Coast Delegation exchange experiences in promoting public-private cooperation

Speaking at the meeting between The Department of Business Registration Management, the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ivory Coast Delegation, Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Anh, Deputy Director of Agency for Business Registration emphasized, this is an opportunity for the two sides to exchange experiences in promoting cooperation between the public and private sectors in order to contribute to the economic development process.

Deputy Director of The Department of Business Registration Management, Nguyen Thi Viet Anh spoke at the meeting

Attending the meeting, on the side of The Department of Business Registration Management, there were Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Anh, Deputy Director and a number of Heads of Division and officials at the Department. On the side of the Delegation, there were 14 members from the public and private sectors of Ivory Coast led by Mr. Jean-Marie ACKAH, Chairman of the Ivory Coast Business Association.

Vietnam is currently a developing country, in order to achieve the goal of transforming from a poor and underdeveloped country to a developing country, we soon realized the importance of genreal reform for the administrative system.

Ivory Coast has taken strong actions through administrative reforms since 2012, such as the promulgation of anti-corruption laws and the establishment of a high-level good management agency, the establishment of a one-stop shop for procedures and investment, digitizing administrative procedures, decentralizing services and achieving some initial achievements.

By 2018, Ivory Coast had developed a national program to support institutional reform and state modernization (PRIME) with the goal of ensuring respect for common interests; reform for the private sector to create wealth; improve the efficiency of public spending; provide quality public services; maintain growth; poverty reduction. Although many efforts have been made, the results have not really met people's expectations.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Anh said that Vietnam started implementing this goal in 1986, so far it has passed 5 stages and each stage has its own goals, achievements, difficulties, challenges and other lessons. In particular, the specific goal for the period 2011-2020 is: Firstly, institutional reform through the issuance of policies that are simple, easy to understand and easy to apply. Second, administrative procedure reform: Cut down cumbersome administrative procedures; creating a simple, public, convenient system of procedures, reducing compliance costs for businesses and people. Thirdly, reforming the organizational apparatus: Functions, tasks, responsibilities and powers of administrative agencies are clearly and concisely demarcated with multi-sectoral and multi-field management ministries. Fourthly, improve the quality of the contingent of civil servants. Fifthly, wage reform, electronic application and computerization of state administration, and sixthly, public investment reform.

Regarding the results achieved at this stage, Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Anh shared, Vietnam has achieved quite outstanding and comprehensive results in many fields; implemented very strong reform programs, putting people and businesses at the heart of reform. Many reform indicators have been improved compared to world rankings, such as reforming enterprises' market access procedures, tax reform, and electricity access reform. Vietnam's credit rating increased, attracting a lot of foreign direct investment, private investment, people's living standards were improved, poverty reduction, many jobs were created, etc.

Achieving the above results, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Anh, Vietnam has learned lessons from implementing synchronous reforms in the overall political system, reforming the state apparatus; combine administrative reform with economic reform; have consistent views and principles, develop specific action plans; there is centralized, unified and resolute direction, strict implementation supervision; consistency from top to bottom. In each stage, it is necessary to test before deploying simultaneously to avoid doing it again and again. Along with that, it is necessary to find a breakthrough goal for each stage, create motivation for the reform process and constantly learn more from other countries' experiences.

Regarding the administrative reform target from 2020 to 2030, this period poses a higher quality requirement and Vietnam has very specific targets to achieve the target by 2025: as a developing country, have modernized industry, surpassing the low-middle income level. By 2030, it will be a developing country with modern industry and high middle income, and by 2045, it will become a developed and high-income country.

Panorama of the meeting

Continue to put the people and enterprises at the center of reform

The objective of this stage is institutional reform, focusing on building a synchronous legal system, without overlaps, contradictions, simplicity and ease of application; administrative procedure reform: minimize administrative procedures, save time and costs for people and businesses; organizational reform of the state administrative apparatus; civil service reform: salary reform for civil servants; public financial reform: public investment to save budget expenditure, public investment in key projects and building e-Government, digital government, increasing application of information technology, digital transformation with the goal of 100% of administrative procedures are paid online, among which, the percentage of online payment transactions reaches 50% or more. At least 90% of administrative procedures are provided online at levels 3 and 4, and at the same time, complete the integration and provide on the National Public Service portal. The rate of online processing applications for levels 3 and 4 out of the total number of applications is at least 80%.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Anh, although there are still some difficulties and challenges, Vietnam has achieved a lot of results that administrative reform has brought, directly affecting economic results, such as: GDP growth at a high rate in Southeast Asia, in 2022, is expected to reach 8% (target 6-6.5%/year); GDP per capita income increased 3.9 times from $547 in 2002 to $4740/person/ in 2022 (ranked 4th in Southeast Asia); foreign investment attraction increased from 20 billion USD/year in 2020 to 39 billion USD/year in 2019, the first 10 months of 2022 reached 22.5 billion dollars; total import and export turnover increased from 114.6 billion USD in 2012 to more than 500 billion USD in just 9 months of 2022; the number of newly established enterprises per year increases from: 77,000 enterprises/year 2011 to 130 thousand enterprises/year/ 2022 (increasing 40% over 10 years).

Vietnam has built a national public service portal. Citizens can carry out electronic administrative procedures at the highest level instead of going directly to administrative agencies for settlement. Thereby helping to reduce time and costs for people. Building a unique electronic identifier for each citizen to carry out administrative procedures without having to declare duplicate information.

About business registration

With the support of UNIDO and a number of other international organizations, Vietnam has been developing a Business Registration Reform Program since 2007. To date, the Program has achieved remarkable achievements in all aspects, legal framework, information technology infrastructure, inter-sectoral coordination mechanism and quality improvement of resources (financial, human resources).

Some members of Ivory Coast Delegation

Regarding the legal framework, Vietnam has built a relatively complete legal system on business registration in the direction of upholding the freedom of business of enterprises, creating all favorable conditions for enterprises in the market's entry and operation. Accordingly, business registration documents and procedures are simplified, helping businesses save maximum time and costs for administrative procedures.

Regarding information technology infrastructure, Vietnam has successfully built and put into operation the National Business Registration Information System since 2010. The National Business Registration Portal provides all services. Online public services for business registration include: Online business registration; post announcement of business registration information; business registration information service.

Regarding the inter-sectoral coordination mechanism, in 2010, Vietnam implemented electronic communication between the business registration agency and the tax authority. This is the first electronic interoperability model in the state management agency block in Vietnam. By the end of 2020, this model of inter-state coordination has been extended to labor management agencies and insurance agencies, thereby reducing business start-up procedures in Vietnam down to only 3 procedures with 6 days of implementation. At the same time, sharing business registration data with other State management agencies, each enterprise only needs to provide standard information to public administrative agencies only once, the agencies will share the information with each other. This has helped reduce the burden of time and costs for businesses when carrying out administrative procedures.

In parallel with the building of the legal framework, information technology infrastructure, the development of resources, including finance and human resources, has also been focused on by Vietnam and considers it one of the conditions determining the success of the Business Registration Reform Program.

The efforts and results of the Business Registration Reform Program in Vietnam have been recognized by the domestic and international community. In the country, business registration has been rated as the best field by the business community for many years in a row.

A representative of the Ivory Coast Delegation spoke at the meeting.

However, besides the achieved results, Vietnam still has many limitations such as the lack of uniformity in the application of regulations across the country; lack of financial resources; not enough people; enterprises do not comply well with the provisions of the law, etc. In the coming time, Vietnam is continuing to make efforts to solve these limitations and narrow the distance to advanced countries in the world.

At the meeting, Director of the Business Registration Support Center, Agency for Business Registration Le Ngoc Thang introduced the business registration agency system in Vietnam and The Department of Business Registration Management, Ministry Planning and Investment. Mr. Thang said that business registration plays an important role in the market economy. Previously, in many countries, the business registration system was still complicated, with many procedures, high costs and many barriers to the development of enterprises. Having close connections, countries with more favorable business registration processes tend to be more developed. The ease of business registration is one of the criteria to measure the quality of the business environment. Reform efforts to simplify and facilitate business registration can be significant benefits for economic development.

Director of the Business Registration Support Center, Agency for Business Registration introduced business registration reform in Vietnam.

The comprehensive economic reform program ("Doi Moi") began to be implemented in 1986 and has been systematically implemented since 1989: a centrally planned and closed economy (enterprises belonging to state ownership) transition to a socialist-oriented market economy. Business Registration Reform (BRR) is one of the priorities of the Government of Vietnam to promote the development of the business environment, etc.

Deputy Director General Nguyen Thi Viet Anh and Chairman of the Ivory Coast Business Association M. Jean-Marie ACKAH

Mr. M. Jean-Marie ACKAH, President of Ivory Coast Business Association highly appreciated Agency for Business Registration for organizing a very meaningful meeting, sharing valuable and practical experiences, simplifying administrative procedures, cutting time and costs for businesses when carrying out procedures of market entrying. Thereby, promoting the development of the private economic sector, contributing to the economic development of the country.

With the theme “A Public Administration Towards the Private Sector” this is a lesson on optimizing the combination of modern public administration and private sector performance for more inclusive economic growth. Mr. M. Jean-Marie ACKAH hopes that in the coming time, the two sides will continue to maintain and strengthen the close and effective economic cooperation connection.

Chairman of the Ivory Coast Business Association M. Jean-Marie ACKAH spoke at the meeting

Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Anh affirmed, Agency for Business Registration is always ready to share the valuable lessons learned during the past time and hopes that the experiences and information that are shared at today's meeting will make practical contributions to the process of administrative reform towards promoting private sector support in Ivory Coast./.