Improving national competitiveness

	Institutional reforms hastened by EVFTA
	Vietnam tries to create favorable business environment
	Trade deficit indicates Vietnam lacks competitiveness

This was the 4th consecutive year, this Resolution has been issued with a lot of new points that promise to create breakthroughs but also challenges. A Customs reporter had an interview with Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung (photo), Director of the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM) around the new points of the Resolution.

It can be seen that the implementation of Government Resolutions 19 from 2014 to now have created positive movements on the business environment that was increasing by 9 places on the Ease of Doing Business Index in 2016 of the World Bank (WB). However, the notable point was that the Vietnam competitiveness rank on the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum (WEF) decreased by 4 places compared to the last year (from 56 to 60), lower than most ASEAN countries, only higher than Laos and Cambodia.,

Competitiveness is now truly a weak point of Vietnam today, when we are following six ASEAN economies (including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei). Thus, in Resolution 19, the Government has focused on measures towards improving labor productivity, national and enterprise competitiveness through the addition of a series of relevant indicators. Resolution 19-2017 issued 250 indicators related to business environment, innovation, competitiveness and e-government, which were divided into 20 groups. In addition, the elements of innovation and e-government are also the important fields in this Resolution 19 to help the Vietnam economy enter into a higher development stage, the stage of the knowledge economy.

Moreover, the indicators in this resolution are defined by the tasks and implementing agencies, that means clearly identifying targets for each ministry, department, agency, unit and identifying which unit is chair and which unit is collaborator. The responsibility of the leaders of ministries and departments are also more associated with specific targets than before.

However, reviewing the implementation of the previous year, a report from the Ministry of Planning and Investment showed that not only the performance of some indicators was not improved, but also the delay and lack of determination in implementing the Resolution still existed, Sir?

Resolution 19-2017 states the request for inspection and supervision to ensure more effective performance. However, we should frankly recognize that besides some ministries and departments with positive movements, there were some other ministries and departments especially some localities being still in hesitancy and lacking determination. Although Resolution 19-2016 was issued on 28th April, 2016, its action plans in many localities just completed in August, 2016, which means that the time to implement was very short. In 2017, from above experiences, we proposed to the Government to issue the Resolution from the beginning of the year and the results as you can see that the Resolution was issued at the beginning of February, 2017.

I remember a recent meeting on improving the business environment, the Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said that 80% of the tasks in Resolution 19 could only finish with close and smooth interagency coordination. With a number of important laws to be affected recently, many specific targets in each of the current indicators are not only related to one ministry and one department. For example, though the construction permit indicator is issued by the Construction agency, the procedures on preventing and fighting against fire belongs to responsibility of the police agency, and the confirmation of ownership for the completed work construction belongs to the Environment and Natural Resources Department. How to those ministries and agencies operate at the same speed to meet the requirements of rank promotion?

At the end of December 2016, this was the first time that the implementation of Resolution 19 was discussed in a meeting between the Government and localities to create the unification and agreement. Following the meeting, you probably already knew that Vietnam has to make many efforts. In the Ease for Doing Business Index of the World Bank in 2016, Vietnam has to increase by 39 places to reach the average level of the top-four ASEAN group. Therefore, Resolution 19 aimed to clarify work and responsibility of each ministry for each indicator and index of the business environment and competitiveness improvement. Moreover, while we are trying to improve our rank, the other economies are developing very fast. Therefore, the Resolution is a necessary condition, but not sufficient. There are many other factors deciding our rank promotion

Thank you,

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