Improvement of the business environment must be closely linked to the civil service discipline

Improvement of the business environment must be closely linked to the civil service discipline. Source: Internet.

Improve business environment is not sustainable

Improving the business environment, improving the quality of growth has been the priority of the Government in recent years. The Government has implemented many actions, notably the continuous issuance of Resolution 19 on improving the business environment, enhancing national competitiveness. This is an attempt to make strategic institutional breakthroughs, which focus on regulatory reform, administrative procedures, and improving the business environment.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Trung, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, efforts to improve our business environment over the past few years have brought remarkable results. After 4 consecutive years implementing Resolution No. 19 of the Government, the business environment and competitiveness of our country has continuously improved. Specifically, in 2017, the national competitiveness increased 5 levels compared with 2016 (from 60/138 to 55/137 economy rank); business environment increased 14 levels, from 82 to 68/190 of world economies; Innovative innovation improved 12 levels, reaching the rank of 47/127 economy. These are the highest rankings that Vietnam has achieved so far. Power access indicators, investor protection, tax payments, access to credit are improved. In addition, Moody's, Standards and Poor's and Fitch in 2017 also raised Vietnam's national credit rating, with Moody's and Fitch upgrading from stable to positive.

However, the above improvements in the business environment, competitiveness are not sustainable and have not met the target. The rankings of many indexes are far lower than those of other countries in the region and have hardly improved in terms of scores and rankings over the years, not to mention a number of other important indicators have even dropped. For example, efficiency of commodity markets, quality of infrastructure, education, business development and technology innovation slow; Starting business ranked No. 123; Debt Settlement Business ranked No. 129 etc.

Recently, at the international conference, "Improving business environment to improve quality and growth rate," the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) confirmed that there is still a situation of "drastic at high level but indifference at subordinates” when Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are drastic, but some ministers are still indifferent, many chairmen of provinces and cities are not yet drastic. In many ministries, ministers are hot but many department heads are not hot, experts are cold, even very cold. Some business associations have not seen the hot, and active, who actively contribute to the joint efforts to improve the business environment. This leads to the results of reform of business conditions despite some positive results, but not equally among ministries. Specifically, if the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Construction went to "terminal" in the amendment of business conditions, many ministries have not yet started.

Strengthening supervision

In 2018, the government continues to set a higher, more comprehensive goal in improving the business environment. Accordingly, the Draft Resolution 19 of 2018 continues to maintain the objective of improving the business environment. Emphasizing the reform of business conditions and specialized management, while adding targets, tasks and solutions to enhance the competitiveness of the logistics industry and the tourism industry in order to support the economic restructuring in general, and the sector structure in particular, boosting labor productivity and competitiveness of the economy.

Specifically, draft Resolution 19, 2018, aims to complete the abolition of at least 1/3 - 1/2 of the current business conditions; The rate of goods subject to specialized inspection shall not exceed 10%, decrease ½ of the list of goods subject to specialized inspection etc. Previously, from January 1st 2018, the Government’s Decree 08/2018/ND-CP amending some Decrees related to investment conditions, doing business under the state management of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This shows a very strong move by both the Government and the ministries. According to economist Phan Duc Hieu, the Government's action quickly and promptly will increase the confidence of the business community. Along with that belief is the direct impact on the creation of a new business to enter the market or for an old business to expand into other fields.

In order to reach the target as well as to limit delays in reducing business conditions, economic expert Pham Chi Lan proposed a new way of reviewing and cutting down business conditions, namely, make a list of all the remaining business conditions, and make a record of the review, requesting progress. Based on the progress, compared with the time of request, the Prime Minister decided to cut if the Ministry delayed. At the same time, expert Pham Chi Lan emphasized the need to increase the role of monitoring and evaluation tools of enterprises and people to improve the ministries’ business environment. "Improved procedures will save society, so those who obstruct people from gaining benefits will have to be punished for what the society has lost. There must be strict discipline for individuals who do not perform duties, this is something to do and do regularly", expert Pham Chi Lan said.

Some experts agree with this and said that the reform of administrative procedures should be targeted at both the enterprises and management agencies. There are clear rules to penalize companies that do wrong, but there are no clear rules to deal with officials doing wrong. They arbitrarily bring out administrative procedures that are not set or deliberately delaying, or do not implement the provisions of law to run the business. Accordingly, in order to reform administrative procedures, besides simplification, for strengthening the post-inspection for the individual organizations implementation, it is necessary to develop regulations guiding the implementation of the Law on Personnel clearly and detailed, especially in the matter of public service discipline.

Regarding the implementation of Resolution 19 in 2018, according to Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, it is necessary to achieve a uniform, comprehensive and accurate result as required by the Government Resolution by all ministers and leaders. Local leaders must be "hot". However, experts said that in addition, the ministries and branches have to move strongly, "hotter" than in the implementation of business environment reform, and need to closely coordinate with the inspections and tasks assigned by the Prime Minister to the ministries and branches. The task of ministries and departments is not simply to document timely, but the content of the document must solve the problems of businesses and people. To this end, the ministries, branches and localities must strengthen dialogue with enterprises.