Controlling business and investment conditions is an important issue

One of the first documents signed by the Prime Minister this year is the Decree on the reduction of 675 business and investment conditions under the control of Ministry of Industry and Trade. What do you think about this move of the Government?

I think that this is a very strong move by both the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Also, the positive results have demonstrated it was the proper course of action by the Government. The promulgation of Decree No. 08 is a practical action, and only when society sees Decree 08 can all the promises made before it become realistic. This is the first most practical action by the ministries in the implementation of Government Resolution No. 01 and Resolution 98 on reducing business conditions.

In your opinion, how will Decree 08 impact on the business community and society?

The Decree No. 08 has a direct impact on the business community. The impact is that enterprises will immediately reduce costs and time in making procedures as previously stipulated. In my opinion, if the business community was frightened that the Government had just made a commitment, a declaration, the current issuance of Decree No. 08 has shown that what the Government says, and how it works is in parallel with business needs, and the ministries are doing the same. The Government’s rapid and timely action will increase the confidence of the business community. The direct impact is on the creation of new businesses entering the market, and on old ones that are expanding to other fields.

The reduction of business conditions is being implemented, but the business community is still concerned about the possibility of additional licensing. What should we do to control this?

In my opinion, ministries should not spend too much time arguing on business conditions, they would be better looking at the bigger picture. Any regulations that are unreasonable, hinder business operations, or increase costs and time for businesses must be abolished rather than just re-located into business conditions.

Controlling business conditions is an important issue. After cutting this business condition, it does not exclude the phenomenon of re-growth, for it does not grow in this way, and new business conditions continue to appear. This is a very difficult problem. In my opinion, in order to have an ultimate solution, in the near future it is necessary to publish a report with statistics on new business start-ups in order to summarize and evaluate regulations to help foster their implementation with better conditions, so that we can see the whole picture.

As far as the Government is concerned, the current control over business conditions has been applied with the same procedures, in accordance with the Law on the Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents, that are not exclusively for business conditions, but also with a general framework of comprehensive sets of criteria for all types of documents and regulations on all contents. In my opinion, in this case there are not enough tools and business conditions need to be clearer, have more specific criteria, and be different from the necessary criteria we consider as common.

At present, the Government is assigning the Ministry of Planning and Investment to develop a Decree on business conditions. This decree is necessary and it should be promulgated early in 2018. The Government should recognize the Decree on Business Conditions as an additional tool for the Law on the Promulgation of Legal Documents, so that it will become more rigorous, practical and effective for regulation. Therefore, it is necessary to promulgate and regulate the tools and criteria to control business conditions better. Ministries should also have the goal of controlling these conditions within ministries themselves. It should be leveraged and assigned to the department which is currently in charge, in order to control business conditions when departments attend to drafting new documents. You should use the department that advises you as a “gatekeeper”.

Thank you so much!