Firms enjoying reformed procedures

A better score in the start-up business index helped Vietnam climb to a higher position in the Doing Business Report for 2011. What do you think about the country’s improvements?

That was the indispensable result of Vietnam’s constant efforts to improve the local business

Mr Nguyen Van Trung

environment, particularly the start-up procedures for new enterprises. One of the most remarkable milestones was Resolution 59/2007/NQ-CP issued on November 30, 2007 giving solutions for some problems relating to administrative procedures and construction investments. Soon after the resolution’s issuance, the MPI joined hands with the ministries of Finance and Police to start the combination of the business and tax registration procedures and to seal registration eliminations, which helped cut times for starting up a business from 32 to five days.

Besides the combination of business and tax registration procedures, we also combined business and tax codes and applied information technology into the process, helping improve and speed up the process.

With the issuance of Decree 43/2010/ND-CP on Business Registration enacted in April 2010 and the development of the information system on business registration nationwide, times for enterprises to complete their business registration procedure were cut to some hours. Expending costs for this process were therefore reduced significantly.

A more simple registration process obviously helps save time and costs for the business sector. How about the state agencies responsible for dealing with these procedures?

Improvements in administrative procedures will make it easier for enterprises to set up and develop their businesses. The number of newly-registered enterprises also increased strongly during the past year, despite the negative impacts of the global economic crisis on local businesses and production activities.

In an effort to bring about a more favorable environment for business operations, civil servants working in business and tax registration fields have carried greater pressures and responsibilities.

There have remained lots of difficulties, and the application of information technology and computers have helped cut a great deal of manual work and risks as well. In my opinion, besides the continuance of training and increased working capacities of civl servants, we should also build a suitable mechanism to encourage their efforts. It is necessary to focus on collaboration among relevant state agencies to ensure the constant and stable operation of the whole system.

Therefore, improvement efforts cannot be narrowed within staff of the planning and investment, tax and police sectors but must be developed in all state staff of all relevant agencies.

Does this mean there will be much more to be done to improve business registration procedures?

Yes, that is completely right. We have been very successful in creating an effective link among state agencies relevant to business registration, tax, police and localities in the first phase of the Business Registration Reform Project, which concluded in October 2010. We are now promoting the cooperation in preparation for the second phase of the project, which will begin soon. Investments in people and technologies will continue to be accelerated.

Here, I would like to mention the responsibility of all state agencies, staff, investors and people in performing their rights and responsibilities, particularly with the information registered by the investors and the people within state bodies. With all of these efforts, I am confident that Vietnam’s business environment will become as favourable and attractive as other countries in the region.