The Resolution No. 19-2018: Pressure must be always hot to boost action

In the last weekend, the Resolution No. 19 was issued, what do you think about the spirit of the fifth Resolution No. 19 of the Government?

Since 2014, each year, the Government has always issued a Resolution No.19 on the implementation of major tasks and solutions to improve the business environment and national competitiveness with specific tasks and targets. This year is the fifth year, so the spirit of the Resolution is the successor of the previous Resolutions, each year, it raises to another level of central issues. This year, the Resolution sets out more ambitions and specific targets, but it also creates more pressure to urge agencies to take action seriously and effectively.

In your point of view, what are the new important things in the Resolution No.19 this year?

The Resolution this year just has “new” requirements in major tasks and targets.

Firstly, is the requirement to remove, simplify business conditions; with the target of 5% reduction in current number this year. This is a quite difficult task, because recently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade only removed over 600 business conditions, meanwhile the target number is over 2,000 business conditions. The remaining ministries are “lining up” with relevant decrees to be submitted to the Government for issuance. This speed is quite slow as there are about 6 months left till the end of the year.

Moreover, the Resolution requires substantial reduction, because there are many complex regulations, with 2 business conditions or one condition consisting of many annexes. In my opinion, perhaps the number of actual business conditions is more than the published number. This is a “bottleneck” in the domestic business activity of Vietnamese enterprises, thus, the Government must create a huge pressure on ministers for the completion time of Resolution No.19.

Secondly, is the requirement for trade facilitation, which emphasizes specialized inspection management activities. The target of reducing the number of customs clearance inspections from 30 to 10% is very large and ambitious. Because, to fulfill this task, it must reduce over 50% of the list of goods, products subject to specialized inspection. However, if this is done, it will help businesses save a lot of costs, increase value added, contribute to the overall growth of the economy, improve the competitiveness of enterprises.

Thirdly, it is necessary to connect the single window mechanism, because the number of procedures are much fewer compared with the number of procedures currently being done. There is a situation that enterprises have to do both online and manual procedures that is leading to increased costs. For many reasons, state agencies have been hesitant in reforming the issue, so this year's Resolution must link public services at level 4, entirely electronically, removing paper dossiers. Only by such force, will it bring new hope for change and reform.

And lastly, while the previous Resolution No. 19 didn’t pay much attention to the localities, the year’s Resolution No.19 has emphasized the role of the locality. It has better guidelines for localities to link the implementation of Resolution No.19 with the improvement of the provincial business environment. One of the requirements is to promote the assessment of competitiveness at the district, departmental and sectoral levels, with the hope of creating a top-to-bottom heating tool.

From the above pressures, what should relevant agencies do to implement effectively?

These new points have created tremendous pressure to reform, forcing agencies to implement, but it still requires close monitoring from independent appraisers, businesses, the media, etc. The pressure is always hot so that it can boost Ministers, Chairmen of the provincial People's Committees... to take action, promote their units to work. Also, in my opinion, there should be another change that if individuals do not achieve results, he or she should be replaced, instead of only reviewing them, which will create greater pressure on the middle stage. This middle stage is really a bottleneck in the implementation of the Resolution No. 19 in particular and other issues of reform in general.

Thank you, Sir!