Mr. Dinh Tien Dung - Member of the Party Central Committee, Minister of Finance: 5 years of "steering" the reformed boat persistently

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Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung

Every Tet holiday comes, we - reporters have a chance to directly meet Mr. Dinh Tien Dung - Member of the Party Central Committee, Minister of Finance to listen to his heart about the determination and efforts of those who hold the national “purse-strings". 5 years with the responsibility of the head of industry, Minister Dinh Tien Dung has "led" the Finance sector to "reap" many "sweet fruits". Most notably, it is the public financial reform; institutional, administrative procedures and apparatus reform of the financial sector.

Towards sustainable public finance

Referring to the Finance industry and reform, we are impressed with the results of public financial reform. This is the sector’s most important task because it contributes greatly to the fast, comprehensive and sustainable economic-financial growth. Recalling the first half of 2013, Mr. Dinh Tien Dung was entrusted with the responsibility of Minister of Finance in the context of the global economic crisis; Vietnam's budget faced an imbalance risk, which made economic experts as well as executive agency "stand and fidget". At this time, many opinions suggested that the new Minister of Finance would choose an easy way by proposing new policies to increase revenues, and solve the "thirst" for the state budget. But he did not! He immediately met the "key" units of the Ministry, thoroughly researched the work, and made the first request for his officials not to balance owed, or not to set out policies to increase taxes for businesses and people.

Reviewing that story, Minister Dinh Tien Dung affirmed that: Issuing tax policies could help the budget to compensate the immediate shortage but could not solve the long-term problem. Could it be that whenever the budget is difficult, we raise and add taxes? That would only increase burdens for businesses and people. The fundamental solution was to restructure both revenues and expenditures to get more secure, sustainable public finance.

This view has been thoroughly implemented by the Minister in the entire Finance sector over the past 5 years.

Minister Dinh Tien Dung emphasized: Regarding the state budget collection, all units from the central level to local ones had actively reviewed and firmly grasped the objects and budget revenues in the local area, strived to combat losses and reduce tax debts, combat transfer pricing,... in all fields, industries and areas with high risks of tax collection management to offset the reduction of revenue because of the implementation of tax exemption, reduction and extension policies; controlled tax declaration, tax finalization, tax refund of enterprises, organizations and individuals, ensuring correct, full and timely collection of taxes, fees, charges and other revenues into the state budget. In particular, the collection agencies, financial agencies and functional forces strengthened close coordination in the management of collection, preventing losses and handling outstanding debts, combating trade frauds, smuggling and transfer pricing.

The above solutions are not new, but, at the time when the state budget faced many difficulties, the ferocity of the head of the Finance sector has brought much greater efficiency. In fact, the size of state budget revenue has grown in absolute value (in 2018, it was 1.7 times higher than in 2013, 2.4 times higher than in 2010) and relative value (from 23.45% of the average GDP in the 2011-2015 period up to 25.6% in 2018). The total state budget revenue from 2013 to the end of 2018 has reached and exceeded the estimate; the following year is higher than the previous year. In 2018 alone, the revenue exceeded the estimate of 102.7 trillion dong, i.e. about 7.8% of the yearly estimate. The structure of state budget revenue has also been more sustainable.

Regarding state budget spending, Minister Dinh Tien Dung shared: The Ministry of Finance has focused on restructuring in the direction of increasing the proportion of spending on development investment and reducing regular expenditures. In fact, spending on investment increased from 24.4% of total state budget expenditure in 2015 to over 27% in 2018 (the target for the period 2016-2020 is 25-26%). Correspondingly, recurrent expenditure decreased from 62.3% in 2015 to less than 62% in 2018, while sill increasing the average salary 7%/year, along with implementing the policy of multi-dimensional poverty reduction, social security, ensuring a number of security and defense tasks... Moreover, in the last 3 years, the budget has accumulated for development investment. At the same time, state budget overspending was strictly controlled both in absolute numbers and in proportion to GDP; in operating, striving to reduce budget overspending compared to estimates and to gradually reduce over the years. If the average budget deficit in the period of 2011-2015 was 5.79% of GDP; in 2018 it was expected to reach 3.6% of GDP (the estimate was 3.7%).

Remember that in recent National Assembly meetings, what the Minister has shared is called as a "miracle" by many National Assembly deputies, because 2017 was the first time in the last 10 years when Vietnam has managed the budget overspending both in absolute and relative numbers. This was the same for 2018. That contributed to controlling public debt, down from 63.7% of GDP in 2016 to 61.4% of GDP in 2017 and about 61% of GDP in 2018.

The smile shone on the stern face of the head of Finance when hearing that. Minister Dinh Tien Dung said: It had been really a great success. In order to achieve that in the context that our public debt was rising and the pressure was high, in 2016, the Ministry of Finance had submitted to the Government for submission to the Politburo to issue the Resolution No.07-NQ/TU on guidelines and measures to restructure the state budget, manage public debt to ensure a safe and sustainable national finance. In 2017, the Ministry had continuously submitted to the Government to submit to the National Assembly for approval of the Law on Public Debt Management (revised) with stricter new regulations. These were very meaningful texts. Besides, the whole sector always tried to follow the state budget overspending and the budget deficit reduction plan. The goals for the next years: overspending would be reduced to 3.6% and 3.4%, ensuring the target under the Resolution that was under 4% for the whole 5-year period and below 3.5% in 2020.

It can be said that these figures are the most convincing evidence for the achievements in public financial reform of the Finance sector in the past 5 years.

Vietnam Customs continues to reform and simplify administrative procedures to facilitate trade. In the photo: Professional activities at Huu Nghi Customs Branch, Lang Son Customs Department. Photo: Huy Kham

Get businesses and people to be the center

For the Finance sector, in addition to managing public finances, institutional reforms and policies are also extremely important because they aim to create maximum convenience for people, businesses, and create leverage for development of production and business activities, create revenue for the state budget and boost economic growth.

Minister Dinh Tien Dung affirmed: To promote growth, it was necessary to adopt financial policies. In recent years, the institutional reform of the Ministry of Finance had always been associated with the construction and improvement of the financial legal system. Thanks to that, the financial legal system had made an important improvement with a large number of new legal documents that were amended, supplemented or promulgated. From 2013 to the present, the Ministry of Finance had submitted to the Government for submission to the National Assembly 14 draft laws; 5 resolutions of the National Assembly, 7 resolutions of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly. At the same time, the Ministry had submitted to the Government and the Prime Minister more than 200 decrees, decisions and had issued according to its authority more than 1,200 circulars and joint circulars. Most documents issued or proposed by the Ministry of Finance adhered to the requirements of administrative reform, institutional reforms in the direction of market economy, promoting the efficiency of the country's resources to meet the real requirements, especially for removing difficulties for production and business, stabilizing the macro economy in order to improve the business environment, enhance national competitiveness, create a legal basis for administrative procedure reform, reduce business conditions, innovate management and modernization methods.

With so many documents to build and modify, we wondered, what did the Ministry of Finance do to meet the goals of reform and timely apply them in life?

In response to this question, Minister Dinh Tien Dung said: To meet the goals of innovation reform, it was necessary to implement comprehensive reforms in all fields of the Finance sector. In the past 5 years, the Ministry of Finance had strengthened the direction on continuing to promote and improve the quality and efficiency of public administration reform in the finance sector. Applying many creative methods such as: one Law amended many Laws, one Decree amended many Decrees and one Circular amended many Circulars. These methods were to simultaneously issue many documents that had a strong impact and could remove difficulties for production, reform administrative procedure, improve business environment. In addition, the Ministry of Finance strengthened the propagation and dissemination of administrative reforms to staff, civil servants and officials in the units under the Ministry and to the people, businesses ...

Listening to what the Minister has just shared, we see more clearly the slogan "get businesses and people to be the center" that the Ministry of Finance has set out and put into real nature. Even under his direction, in order to create maximum conditions for people and businesses, officials and public servants of the whole industry determine to change management methods from pre-check to post-check as well as transparent information, processes and administrative procedures, although this increases the pressure and responsibility on management agencies many times.

Talking more specifically about the results of administrative procedure reforms, Minister Dinh Tien Dung said: By the end of 2018, there were 839 administrative procedures in the Finance sector. In addition, the Ministry of Finance had provided the online public services for 987 administrative procedures, of which nearly 30% had reached level 4.

The electronic tax declaration system has been implemented in 63/63 provinces and cities with the participation of 697,377 enterprises. The Tax Authority has completed the connection to pay electronic tax with 50 commercial banks and 98.15% of enterprises registered to use. The pilot system of authenticating electronic invoices has been successfully implemented in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with nearly 7.3 million valid ones.

In the Customs field, VNACCS/VCIS system is operating stably with the participation of about 83.2 thousand enterprises. The national one-door mechanism has 11 ministries and sectors to connect with 136 administrative procedures and over 25.3 thousand enterprises. Customs agencies also signed with 37 commercial banks to collect e-tax, the revenue accounted for over 90% of the budget revenue of this sector, reducing the implementation time from 2 days to 15 minutes.

The Ministry of Finance, directly the General Department of Customs, also devoted much effort to coordinate with related ministries and agencies to review and complete documents on specialized inspection, to propose solutions to reform specialized inspection procedures for exported and imported goods to shorten goods clearance time. According to statistics, up to now, there have been 13 ministries and agencies that have amended and supplemented 80/87 legal documents on specialized management and inspection (accounting for 92%). At the same time, the Ministry of Finance cooperated with ministries and branches to review and standardize the list of import and export goods with HS code in accordance with the list of Vietnam export and import goods. So far, ministries and sectors have completed 6/53 portfolios, implemented 9/53 categories; promulgated standards and norms for groups of goods that need the specialized inspection.

In particular, the Ministry of Finance has submitted to the Government to issue Decree No. 151/2018/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of Decrees stipulating conditions for business investment under the scope of State management of the Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, 117/190 business conditions have been cut and simplified, facilitating businesses.

Do hundreds of tax payment hours that are cut, thousands of administrative procedures and hundreds of business conditions that are simplified put pressure on the finance sector in the 2019 reform plan, Minister?

Without hesitation, Minister Dinh Tien Dung answered us: Although the number of administrative procedures in the finance sector that had been cut, simplified in recent years was relatively large, the Ministry of Finance was still persistently reviewing to continuously propose plans to simplify administrative procedures in all management areas, focusing on reducing the time and cost of implementing administrative procedures directly related to people, businesses. For example, at the end of 2018, I had signed the Decision to approve the plan to reduce, simplify 176 administrative procedures in the field of management of the Ministry of Finance, which was expected to continuously reduce and abolish 148 administrative procedures and simplify 28 ones. Similar to business conditions, the Ministry of Finance was continuously improving to submit to the Government for promulgating a Decree to amend Decree No. 68/2016/ND-CP dated 1/7/2016 on regulations on duty free business conditions, warehouses, and locations for customs procedures, gathering, inspection, supervision and customs to reduce and simplify 29 business conditions. At the same time, it was studying to submit to the Government to amend Decree No. 104/2007/ND-CP on debt collection service business to amend 5 business conditions (expected to be submitted to the Government in early 2019). In addition, the revised Securities Law and the Law on Tax Administration (amended) projects that were expected to be passed by the National Assembly in 2019 would cut 28 additional conditions.

Reform is a difficult task and requires great determination. For a multidisciplinary, multi-sectoral unit like the Ministry of Finance, this is much more difficult. However, with the determination of the head of the industry and the efforts of all units in the Finance sector from the central to local levels, the administrative reform process of the sector initially has accomplished many achievements. These results are the clearest evidence that the Ministry of Finance is always in the "top" 3/19 ministries and ministerial agencies on the PAR Index from 2014 to 2017.

Streamlined apparatus, efficient operation

Not only achieving the above results, the entire finance sector also continuously "transforms" in rearranging the apparatus in a streamlined, efficient and effective manner. It is also a breakthrough reform.

At the time Minister Dinh Tien Dung accepted the task in May 2013, it was the time when the arrangement and renewal of the apparatus had been set by the 7th Central Conference (XI session). In response to this request, in all intra-industry meetings, the head of the Finance sector has always grasped this content with a drastic request to implement. As a result, from the beginning of 2013 to the end of 2017, the Ministry of Finance cut about 2,649 units from the central level to the local (team) level. Moreover, implementing the Resolution of the 6th Central Conference of the 12th session, in 2018, the Ministry of Finance made reductions of 536 clues.

Minister Dinh Tien Dung said excitedly: Up to now, the organizational structure of the finance sector had been significantly streamlined, the performance of tasks had been enhanced, and professional operations of the units were smooth, without disturbance. Those were very positive results. However, this work still had to continuously be implemented in the coming time in parallel with the task of restructuring and improving the quality of the entire civil servants and employees through perfecting the system of leadership and management standards of all levels; piloting the entrance exam for leadership positions and managerial levels; attracting and recruiting talents; rotating, changing positions; training officials associated with job positions and structure of civil servants.

CONCLUSION

It can be seen that the Ministry of Finance's reform objectives in the coming time have been clearly planned from the direction to specific targets. We are curious: "To continuously achieve success, what do we need to do in the near future, Minister?"

Minister Dinh Tien Dung answered: the leaders of the Ministry of Finance and leaders of all levels in the sector would continue to link administrative reforms, persist in renewing management methods from pre-check to post-control with the risk management, process and professional reform, modernizing the industry and reforming the apparatus, restructuring the staff, ensuring effective operation. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance would regularly inspect and supervise; take performance results to be one of the important criteria to assess the level of accomplishment of the head of the unit. In the process, the Ministry of Finance was looking forward to receiving the consent of the local authorities, the attention and support of all levels and sectors.

The Minister of Finance, Mr. Dinh Tien Dung explains to the National Assembly about budget allocation VCN- On the afternoon of November 1, 2016, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Dinh Tien Dung explained ...

5 years with countless challenges is also a milestone marking the spectacular "jump" of the finance sector on reform. 2019 - a decisive year for the implementation of the 2016-2020 plan as well as the 5-year Finance Plan for the period 2016-2020, has been well forecasted. With the resonance of these favorable conditions, we deeply feel that the financial and budgetary tasks would continue to break through, creating a push for the entire industry to achieve success under the guidance of the passionate and determined Head.