"The most important thing is action"

Mr. Phan Duc Hieu assessed:

Recently, the Government has issued many solutions and documents to promote business support, in particular, the most notable is Resolution 35/NQ-CP on support and development of enterprises to 2020 with synergistic effects on the entire business environment. This has created positive results in improving the business environment, simplifying and facilitating enterprises in solving administrative procedures. As evidenced by the fact that the number of newly registered enterprises increased sharply, attracted foreign investment achieved high results, enterprises feel that the reform of administrative procedures facilitate them better than before.

Despite the positive results and positive impact, but I think that result has not reached the expectations of the business community, compared with the goals of economic development in the country, especially when aligned with other countries in the region, the favorable business environment of our country is at an average level in the world. Even in some respects, some areas and quality are poor or very poor compared to many countries in the world.

The business environment is still defective, meaning that when integrating with the international economic or competing with other enterprises, Vietnamese enterprises are in a more disadvantageous position. Because the quality of the business environment is not good, the cost of doing business, the cost of creating products and services is more expensive.

So what are the most significant constraints that need to be improved, sir?

In my opinion, the most restrictive point is that there are still many legal risk factors, creating negative impact on business activities of enterprises. For example, the change of the law of business conditions, which can lead to bankruptcy, the loss of an investment company, which, in my opinion, does not really mean business.

Typically, recently the business community has raised much debate on Decree 19/2016/ND-CP on gas trading by the Government. Previously, we amended and issued the Decree with more stringent business conditions, with higher requirements on production facilities. This led to a part of enterprises do not meet the requirements and forced to withdraw from the market, some companies have to invest more to survive and business. Before the recommendations of enterprises, then we have amended this Decree, reduce the business conditions, which means to create more favorable conditions for competition and entry into the market. But this change also poses a huge risk that some companies have to withdraw from the market, if they want to join again, must start from the beginning; the second is that some companies have actually invested to comply with the law, to some extent it is a waste, not really for business purposes but mainly for legal compliance.

In addition, I think that state management agencies should improve the protection of legitimate interests for businesses. Accordingly, the adjudication of disputes must be fast, accurate, really protect the interests of stakeholders, when the current reality, to judge the dispute takes up to a year, because of procedural hesitation, many businesses do not choose to settle disputes in the formal way, but settle in the informal way, which is called implicit resolution. This causes a lot of waste and a lot of risk for businesses.

In the face of the above limitations, what suggestions do you have for the Government to come up with solutions?

The message of the Government is to accompany the enterprises, this reflects the great determination of the Government, creating a great motivation and trust for enterprises. However, in the coming time, the government must make more efforts than before, at the same time, apply the market mechanism in allocating resources to support enterprises.

I suppose, companionship and support is true, but the ultimate goal is to move the message from support, companion to business protection. Enterprises’ legitimate rights and interests need to be more protected, then they will invest more in production and business, so that Vietnam achieve economic development.

The most important issue is action. Need for extensive reform, reduce the state intervention in the market, so that the market is developed freely. We should study the reform of Korea's business environment, reform the rules substantially, review the whole system of laws, abolish unnecessary regulations; they formed and commissioned a team of consultants to assist the Government in this field.

In addition, it should be noted, the spirit of Resolution 35 has two objects affected by the State and enterprises. If enterprises do not innovate by themselves but rely on state support, they will not create the market. Therefore, enterprises themselves have to actively create and change.

Thank you Sir!