The Vietnam Business Registration Reform has been implemented since 2007 by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) under Government’ directions in the Resolution No. 59/2007/NQ-CP on a number of solutions to problems in construction investment activities and reform of some administrative procedures applicable to enterprises. With a strong determination in simplification the market entry for enterprises, the MPI, of which the focal point is Agency for Business Registration (ABR), has successfully established a new legal framework on business registration and developed the National Business Registration system. Partially contributed to the success has the effective support and coordination from the international donor community via the Project Technical Assistance to Business Registration in Vietnam.
The UNIDO – donor representative- has a brief interview with Mr. Lê Quang Mạnh – Director General of ABR about the results as well as the future direction for national reform in business registration. The interview has been featured in UNIDO Quarterly Brief, September 2013.
Question: What do you think are the major achievements of the project so far? How those achievements contribute to the national administration reform and to the business enabling environment?
Answer:
The Project Technical assistance to Business Registration Reform in Vietnam has successfully completed the two implementation phases A and B. The impacts the Project placed on Vietnam business environment were essential and well acknowledged by international community and domestic alike. In legal aspect, the Project has established an inter-ministerial legal framework to consolidate enterprise and tax registration to ease market entry procedures and create a constitutional basis for exclusively computerization of business registration, development and further improvement of National Database on Business Registration. Concurrently, the Project has effectively supported the capacity building activities for almost 600 business registration officers in 63 provinces and created an information exchange mechanism within the whole national registration system, between registry and tax agencies.
The Project implementation has cut registration time for businesses. The enterprise registration status report was provided by Agency for Business Registration to Cabinet meetings where the new registrations and dissolutions are regularly reviewed and used in policy decision-making.
Question: What will be the continued agenda of the business registration reform?
Answer:
The activities in the coming time include contribution to the amendment of the Law on Enterprises and the Law on Investment to create a transparent and equal business environment for all business entities in Vietnam; further improving the quality of the National Business Registration Database to provide the public with precise, comprehensive and updated information about legal status of enterprises; enhancing the service quality standard provided by the Business Registration Offices (BROs) from local to central level; fostering the public communication on the exploitation and utilization of the business registration information, aiming to establish an open market for enterprise information.
Figure: Enterprises Population generated from the National Database on Business Registration for the period of 2010-2013.
Source: UNIDO Quarterly Brief, September 2013