Vietnam's business environment improves despite challenges in disease

Measures to improve Vietnam’s business environment continued showing effectiveness despite the COVID-19 pandemic, but the speed of improvement slowed compared to previous years.

The statement was made by Dau Anh Tuan, head of the VCCI's Legal Department, at a seminar in Hanoi on April 20 held to reveal the findings of the report on “Vietnam’s business environment reform programme: Perspectives from enterprises".

According to the report, the criteria of business establishment and access to electricity were rated the highest, with 72.5 percent and 65.9 percent of businesses rated good or very good in improvement, respectively. Bankruptcy ranked last with 44.4 percent of businesses rated good or very good.

But the tendency of improvement seemed to be slowing down compared to previous years, Tuan said.

The improvement trend of fields was quite contradictory. The rate of improvement of fields with low scores such as bankruptcy, investor protection and import-export, went up, while rates of fields with high scores, such as business establishment, access to electricity, went down.

With regard to corporate finance, while credit access in 2020 was perceived to be more difficult than in 2019, tax procedures became much easier. Locally, the indicators were still more positive than in 2019, but the rate of improvement had slowed down, he said.

He said that the administrative procedures related to construction, although improved in recent years, had not really facilitated businesses. The most difficult procedures include land, site clearance, construction planning, urban planning, decisions on investment policy.

The report also showed that private and small-scale enterprises faced more difficulties in completing construction procedures than foreign-invested and large-scale enterprises.

Informal fees are now the biggest problem businesses are facing, particularly records handling officers and the legal regulations.

Tran Thi Hong Minh, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), said there were still many obstacles for businesses such as complex regulation system and overlapping and unnecessary business conditions.

Specialised inspection activities moved slowly. The one-door customs mechanism had not yet been effective as businesses still had to submit paper copies. There was a lack of connection between ministries, and the information technology system was congested, she said.

Regarding judicial reform, the proportion of enterprises using courts to resolve disputes increased, but the judgment enforcement rates of enforcement agencies decreased, said Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Vu Tien Loc.

We have reduced the inequality between private and State-owned enterprises, between private and FDI enterprises. But there are still complaints about corruption and interest groups.

The stability of our laws and policies has reduced market access conditions in many sectors and industries, creating very good conditions for small and medium enterprises to enter the market. However, in many areas that require large investment and prolonged capital recovery, the risk of policy changes is still worrying, hindering many large enterprises to invest money,”./.