Swiss roll into reform goal

The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) last week joined a partnership between the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD) and the United Nations Industrial Development (UNIDO) on business registration reform in Vietnam with a $6.6 million contribution for phase two and three which raised the total capital of this project up to $12.5 million.

The “Technical assistance to business registration reform in Vietnam” project, which started in November 2008, is expected to be completed in 2012. The first phase of the project which assisted the MPI, the General Department of Taxation (GDT) and provincial authorities in the establishment of a single-point, will be finished in November, 2010 after being fully computerised registration service for business, tax, statistics and public security registration for enterprises in 63 cities and provinces.

“Switzerland is pleased to contribute, through SECO’s programme, to the business registration reform in Vietnam,” said Jean-Hubert Lebet, ambassador of Switzerland in Vietnam.

Lebet said this programme would further help the private sector, improve the transparency of the business environment, facilitate the full implementation of the Enterprise Law and practice of better corporate governance.

Nguyen Van Trung, vice minister of the MPI, said: “Business registration reform reduced significantly the cost the time for completion of business, tax, statistics and seal registration through the simplification and standardisation of pre-registration and registration procedures and steps.”

“Each registered enterprises has a unique ID, which is the same as the tax code for the enterprise. Single-point registration services being performed by business registration offices at cities and provinces ensure the same level of services delivered to enterprises, regardless of business location,” Trung added.

The implementation of phase two and three of technical assistance aims to set up a web-based information distribution system open to enterprises, the authorities and the general public, full online registration, including e-payments and the filling of audited, annual financial statements of shareholding enterprises as required by the Enterprise Law.

“The National Business Registration System (NBRS) not only facilitates online information sharing between 63 business registration offices (BROs), the MPI, the GDT, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, but it also reduces the duplicate use of business names and offers web-enabled services, including optional online submission of registration application,” said Nilgun Tas, UNIDO representative.

She added that the greatest beneficiary would be the business community as they would be able to have access to reliable and legally valid information about their potential business partners in Vietnam through NBRS.

As of October 2010, registration records of 405,000 enterprises and subordinate units in 58 cities and provinces across Vietnam, where computerised work flows are already activated, were checked and transferred to the NBRS.

The total number of enterprises on the NBRS database is expected to reach nearly 550,000 in early mid-November, when Hanoi and the final four provinces start full operations through the NBRS. The NBRS at the MPI is electronically linked with and fully synchronised with the GDT database.