Businesses are the soul of CSI

The press conference announcing the CSI 2019

This is the fourth consecutive year that the VCCI’s Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD) holds this programme. Over the past three years, the coverage of sustainable development stories has grown, a trend welcomed by the business community.

On the day of the launch, all the participants applauded that the prime minister had just signed Directive No.13/CT-TTg dated May 20, 2019 on sustainable development. The directive noted that the VCCI and VBCSD should collaborate with the National Council on Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Enhancement, as well as ministries, agencies, and localities to promote sustainable development activities.

They should also provide general advice the government to overcome challenges of the public-private partnership (PPP) model in order to create a favourable investment climate, and encourage the participation of the business community in implementing sustainable development goals of Vietnam.

Over the last three years, the CSI has brought about breakthroughs to improve knowledge on sustainable development, as well as encourage Vietnamese businesses to implement the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, honouring hundreds of enterprises at each term.

At CSI 2018, VCCI chairman Vu Tien Loc said, “Businesses should put CSI in their ‘heart’. This way, they will develop well, improve their competitiveness, and become a motivation for Vietnam’s economy.”

This message touched the ‘heart’ of every enterprise. The programme of the VBCSD is gathering great interest among businesses. Of particular note, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are paying increasing attention to the CSI.

Nguyen Quang Vinh, general secretary of VCCI cum vice chairman of the VBCSD, said that CSI 2019 has been optimised and simplified a great deal since past years. The number of indexes has been reduced from 131 to 98, with 90 per cent related to legal compliance.

These indexes are available for viewing at the website www.vbcsd.vn, where businesses could submit online declarations. “We believe that the new version of CSI 2019 will be very useful for enterprises to make decisions towards more responsible business and sustainable prosperity,” confirmed Vinh.