Vietnam Increases 14 places in Open Budget Survey

	Four-month State budget revenue drops as Gov’t offers tax relief
	Increasing recurrent expenditure savings to ensure budget balance in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic
	Budget overspending looks likely

The annual Citizens Budget is an effective publicitymethod of Vietnam. Photo: Ministry of Finance .

On May 18, the Ministry of Finance said that according to the Open Budget Survey 2019, Vietnam’s budget transparency score significantly increased compared to previous assessments, reaching 38/100 points for the pillar of budgettransparency, increasing 23 points compared to 2017; 11/110 points for the pillar ofparticipation, increasing by 4 points compared to 2017; 74/100 points for the pillar ofoversight, increasing by 2 points compared to 2017. Vietnam ranks 77^th out of 117 countries, jumping 14 places compared to 2017.

The Open Budget Survey (OBS) is an initiative to promote budget transparency, which has been conducted by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) biannually since 2006 and is implemented in more than 100 countries around the world; thereby giving points to assess the level of budget transparency of countries and economies in the three pillars of budget accountability.

During the survey, IBP has collaborated with civil society, in Vietnam as the Center for Development and Integration (CDI) to conduct assessments and provide evidence to answer survey questions; and invited representatives of the Governments of the countries, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance in coordination with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the State Audit Office and the National Assembly's Office to provide comments and provide supporting documents answering the survey questions.

According to the OBS2019 ranking, Vietnam is assessed to have maderemarkable efforts and progress in the level of budget transparency.

Under the State Budget Law 2015, the scope, subjects, content and form of publicity are much wider than before, especially the data publicity and explanatory reports on the State budget estimates when submitting to the Government and the National Assembly, together with the Citizens Budget is used as simple and easy language for people to understand, increasing their participation in budget allocation and monitoring.

Notably, Vietnam has published sevenout of eight key budget documents. In which, including the Citizens Budget is compiled and published for tworeporting periods that are the Executive’s Budget Proposal and the Enacted budget.

Vietnam’s Mid-YearReview has not yet recognized by IBP as the Mid-YearReview according to international practices, because it has not provided quantitative information about state budget estimate of the whole year, although it has been reported by the Ministry of Finance to the Government and publicized.

This is unique feature of Vietnam because the National Assembly has the Year-End meeting at the end of October, the Ministry of Finance assesses the performance of the State budget for the whole year to report to the Government and the National Assembly 20 days laterthan the international standard (IBP stipulates that the Mid-Year Review must be published before September 30 of the reporting year).

In the near future, the Ministry of Finance continues to perform publicity of the State budget, promote IT application in publicizing the State budget to create maximum conditions for people to access and usethe State budget information. Along with that, guiding and monitoring localities, ministries and sectors to strictly implement the publicity in accordance with the provisions of the State Budget Law.

Strengthening the publicity among the people to improve the understanding and and attract the attention of the people about budget transparency, especially in their localities, thereby, fulfilling the task of supervising and monitoring the use of State budget of sectors and levels.