During the recent time, the Vietnam business environment has improved significantly, which was recognized by the international donors community. However, according to the ranking of DoingBusiness Report- an annual business environment report of the World Bank Vietnam was ranked is 78/189 in 2015, dropping 6 levels compared with that of 2014, even though these indexes are the basis for Vietnam to implement series of policy reforms during the recent time. According to the evaluation method of the World Bank, the national data was enumerated from 2013 until mid-2014 for the evaluation and ranking of 2015. Therefore, 2015’s ranking does not reflect the recent effort of the Government. With the 2-year delay, intensive renovation of the Government in 2014 can only be reflected in 2016 ranking. However, the above result also shows that the Government still needs to continue improving the quality, efficiency of the policies in the business environment as well as promoting the communication with the international community in regards to the achievements of Vietnam.
Government and consolidated methods to improve the business environment
During the past years, Vietnam Government has paid considerable attention to promote the business environment albeit the challenges from both global and domestic macro-economies.. In March last year, the Government has issued Resolution No. 19/NQ-CP in regards to the primary objectives and methods to improve the business environment and national competitiveness including short-term and medium-term plans. At the same time, the Government has been instructing on intensive and consolidated implementation of various mechanisms, especially the reforming of the administrative process in taxation, customs, social insurance, construction license, land, power approach, enterprises establishment and dissolution, investment procedures etc. Some salient results during the recent time are:
The promulgation, amendment and supplementation of various legal documents in order to renovate, simplify the administrative process for taxation and to ease the complications related to tax issues for enterprises. Within 2014, the percentage of enterprises carrying out e-taxation increased from 65% to 95%; duration for tax filing reduced 290 hours, from 537 hours/year to 247 hours/year. Besides, with the Law on Taxation (amended) enacting from 01/01/2015, the duration for tax filing will reduce 80 hours more, from 247 hours/year to 167 hours/year (lower than ASEAN-6’s average of 171 hours/year).
The reviewing and simplifying the procedure and officially implementing the national “one-stop-shop” mechanism at international ports, aiming to reduce the average customs clearance time from 21 days to 14 days in 2015 for exports and 13 days for imports. According to the report of Ministry of Finance, the application of national customs “one-stop-shop” mechanism itself can reduce 10 - 20% of the cost and 30% of the customs clearance time for enterprises.
The simplifying of social insurance submission, enterprises establishment and dissolution as well as power accessibility. The time for social insurance submission has reduced 100 hours, from 335 hours/year to 235 hours/year. The time for enterprises’ establishment, reorganization, and dissolution has reduced about 50%, in which the time for dissolution is specifically reduced to 180 days. The time for power accessibility was reduced from 115 days to 70 days.
Furthermore, the new Enterprise Law and Investment Law have shown a strong determination of the Government to transform the business environment into a more prominent arena for enterprises and all other economic parties.
In these two Laws, many provisions have been adjusted, replaced in order to make businesses a more efficient and safer economic tool and attract investment and mobilize social resources into economic production. The Enterprise Law 2014 continues to facilitate the business registration procedure; abolishes the requirements for business conditions at establishment; allows the enterprises to auto-dissolve in 180 days after the date of issuing dissolution decision; applies firm regulations to protect shareholders of joint stock companies; recognizes social enterprises; regulates more strictly the administration of state-owned enterprises. The Investment Law 2014 also has some primary adjustments aiming at building an equitable business environment for domestic and international investors. The Laws were constituted with more “ready” provisions on investment procedure including abolishing investment license procedures, creating a more simple procedure, reducing the time for issuing the license; rebuilding the list of prohibited business lines and conditional business lines in adhere to the motto of the Constitution 2013“Citizens are allowed to do what is not prohibited by Laws” .
Legal reformation attached with technical infrastructure improvement
Besides the legal reform, the Government has set high target in improving the information technologies and infrastructure in order to create a more appealing and transparent market. During the recent years, the launching of National business registration system (NBRS) is a groundbreaking renovation. The NBRS has computerized all the business registration procedures which helped to reduce the business registration time to three (03) working days. Together with building the System, state agencies have finalized the National database on business registration. This is the original source of legal information of more than 800.000 enterprises. This is the first time Vietnam has a comprehensive database for enterprises, which is considered to be a significant achievement and the first step in the process of making business information available and accessible to the public. This step will help to ensure the enforcement of state governance and create conditions for the community to approach the information in a more economical and updated manner.
In order for the public to have a better access to the registration data, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has built the National Portal on business registration with basic public services including: online business registration, e-gazette, business information services. Besides, the Portal is also used to upload supporting documents for business registration; updated legal documents related to business environment; systematize the list of conditional business lines which allows the users to consult directly the conditional business lines and business conditions. The Portal also allows users to search for enterprise names, basic information of enterprises; consult the obstacles normally encountered during the business registration process etc,. Until now, the Portal has about 14 million of accesses and 100.000 requests for online services.
Apparently, Vietnam Government’s effort during the recent time is relatively comprehensive and has achieved acknowledgeable outcomes. Together with the efforts of the business community, the impacts to the business environment are expected to last long and create a dynamic and vital force for a more sustainable development. The business community is always the primary essence to promote economic growth. A dynamic business community will be the basis to build a vibrant and developed business environment.
Thanh Nga
(Source: ABR)