Ministry of Construction: Continue to listen to business opinions despite being criticized

Despite positive reforms, the business conditions of the construction sector still have many conditions. Photo: H.Dịu

Keep listening despite being criticized

In the context of continuous meetings and contact between ministries and businesses in order to find solutions for improving administrative procedures strongly, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has cooperated with Ministry of Construction to hold a conference to listen to difficulties, problems and proposed measures to remove obstacles in mechanisms and policies on capital construction in the morning of 29/3 at Hanoi.

This event attracted a lot of attention and participation in the field of the construction community, when the head of the industry - Minister of Construction Pham Hong Ha attended and directed in the conference.

Speaking at the conference, the Minister of Construction said that the Government and other agencies, ministries and branches are always ready to listen, note the comments of enterprises in order to improve the policy mechanism. Therefore, Minister Pham Hong Ha suggested enterprises which have urgent issues should clearly state, or even propose solutions to the Constitution so that the legislative body could amend timely.

On behalf of the business community, acknowledging the efforts to improve the business conditions by the Ministry of Construction, Dr. Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of VCCI, said many practical obstacles have been heard and corrected by the Ministry as well as amended and abolished over time.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Construction has abolished the regulations of houses for sale having to go to the real estate trading floor; Exemption of construction permits for a number of small works or detailed planning; Extending the right to lease or lease the purchase of real estate to be formed in the future; Allowing foreigners to buy and own houses in Vietnam ...

However, Mr. Vu Tien Loc thought that the overall business conditions of the construction industry still had many, many policies, and the implementation of the state officials have not met the desires of the business community for: Having a legal corridor for the condotel; Institutionalizing the payment guarantee in the construction contract; Suspended planning, arbitrary planning adjustments still occur; Lack of inter-administrative procedures in other fields; Applying norms for unit price which are not suitable with reality; Construction permits and procedures for grant and adjustment are complicated.

Currently, the Ministry of Construction is in charge of 195 administrative procedures. The ministry also plans to reduce the business investment conditions to 13 sectors, proposed to abolish by 41.3%, simplify 43.7% of the conditions for investment in business.

Moreover, the Ministry of Construction is drafting a law amending four laws including: Construction, housing, real estate business, urban planning. Therefore, the Minister of Construction said that he would constantly, regularly listen to opinions, and they can even be honest and "straight" opinions.

The mechanism of “asking for”

From the openness of the leaders at the conference, enterprises and representatives of the industry association made many suggestions to facilitate business.

According to the enterprises, the common problems are in the content of the circulars. There have many contents that are imposing, even "set" the conditions to force the stakeholders to "ask" the governing body to "give", because state management is still obsessed with the subsidy management system, it is always in the management position and is afraid to hear criticism.

In addition, according to the opinions of the business community in the South East region which was collected by VCCI Vungtau Branch, the application and guidance of enterprises in departments and sectors is slow and inconsistent. Some documents are detailed and meticulously issued, but there are many redundant regulations, causing cumbersome conditions in reform.

In spite of the complaints about overlapping administrative procedures, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hiep, Chairman of the Association of Construction Contractors said that the inspection work on construction investment has not been consistent. Each sector has its own inspectorate so it is possible to have in one quarter the enterprises having to follow 5 different inspection teams in the same project. This is contrary to the requirement of the Prime Minister that every year a company only needs to be inspected once.

Therefore, Dr.Nguyen Ngoc Long, Vice Chairman of Vietnam Bridge and Road Association said that besides listening and receiving opinions of enterprises, the management authorities need to build and develop the capacity of the stakeholders. They should confirm roles, responsibilities and requirements with the investor at first. Also, the ministries, sectors should continue to strengthen the capacity of competent authorities with construction investment which is a high economic-technical field.