The report on Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) in 2020 acknowledged efforts in administrative reform of all 63 provinces and centrally-run cities, but the business circle still wants local administrations at all levels to further improve their transparency and accountability.
At the event (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) –
The report on Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) in 2020 acknowledged
efforts in administrative reform of all 63 provinces and centrally-run cities,
but the business circle still wants local administrations at all levels to
further improve their transparency and accountability.
Participants at the event to announce the PCI 2020 on April 15
pointed to areas that need more reform attention such as land, taxation and
social insurance.
Dau Anh Tuan, head of the legal department at the Vietnam
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said amidst the bright spots in the
picture of reform in 2020, there remained worrying statistics. For example, one
in every four interviewed enterprises said local administrations favour
State-owned enterprises and cause difficulties to private ones. Nearly one in
every three enterprises thought local administrations gave preferential
treatment to foreign-invested enterprises.
Meanwhile, nearly 45 percent said they still had to pay informal
expenses, and 20 percent said State civil servants are unfriendly and
ineffective. Meanwhile, the impact of COVID-19 has caused enterprises’
confidence to drop strongly. Only 41 percent of enterprises including private
and FDI ones plan to expand their business in the next two years, down more
than 10 percentage points compared to 2019.
PCI scores in 2020 also showed a slight reduction from 2019 and
the leading localities in the PCI rankings made less breakthrough changes,
which showed the reform momentum seemed to slow down.
Tuan stressed that the 2020 PCI report paid special attention to
analyzing the impact of the pandemic on the business circle. He noted that
enterprises appreciated the timely response and support policies made by the
Government and local authorities in the situation.
Regarding difficulties faced by enterprises, he said the least
improvement was made in transparency, with 57.4 percent of enterprises said
they need to have relations with local officials in order to get access to
local documents on land, bidding or even land planning and land use plans in
localities.
VCCI
Chairman Vu Tien Loc underlined that authorities at all levels and all sectors
must be thoroughly aware of the need to create a favourable, healthy and fair investment
and business environment for all economic sectors.
The PCI report has been published annually since 2005 by
the VCCI and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to assess the
ease of doing business, economic governance and administrative reform efforts
by provincial and city governments to promote the development of the private
sector.
Produced based on data collected from enterprises,
the PCI has been viewed as ‘the common voice’ of the business community on the
level of reform in various fields./.