In his remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam called on ministries and departments to double efforts in improving the business climate and the quality of growth.

Ousmane Dione, Country Director of the World Bank (WB) in Vietnam, said that the Government of Vietnam has paid great attention to improving legal regulations, notably the Enterprise Law. The number of operational private enterprises has increased 13 times to 520,000 in 2017.

Vietnam still boasts huge untapped growth potential especially from the private economic sector. The global competitiveness of Vietnam is still poor due to some procedures, while there are limitations in capital access and business skills and in particular unofficial expenses still account for up to 10%.

According to Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment Nguyen Dinh Cung, ministries, departments and localities have actively worked to improve the business environment and alleviate difficulties for enterprises.

The Government’s Resolution 19 has created a strong movement to improve the business environment nationwide, Cung said, adding that most of localities have held dialogues with businesses to handle their bottlenecks and incentivize them to make greater contributions to the local economic growth.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Van Trung held that the slow-paced implementation of the resolution in departments and localities has resulted in the failure to realise the target of narrowing the gap in business environment quality and competitiveness with other regional countries.

Catherine Kadennyeka Masinde, a WB representative suggested Vietnam should raise responsibility of organizations and individuals while realizing the resolution.

Vietnam moved up 14 places to rank 68th among 190 economies in the World Bank (WB)’s Doing Business 2018 report themed “Reforming to Create Jobs”.

In the previous report, Vietnam jumped nine places to rank 82nd in 190 economies.
Vietnam and Indonesia have conducted the most reforms in the past 15 years, with 39 reforms each, according to the report

Michael Greene, Country Director of the USAID in Vietnam said USAID will continue to support Vietnam in its efforts to improve its business environment in the years to come through two new economic growth projects totaling more than 50 million in nine years reimbursable ODA. One would support this country with trade facilitation issues.

The projects will advance trade facilitation efforts by simplifying procedures, harmonizing trade administration, enhancing the skills of customs officials at both the central and provincial levels and the modernizing customs operations, particularly through a risk based approach to better monitor and manage trade flows.

Source: vov.vn