According to the Daily, in a plan issued last week, the city will reduce the time for tax payment to no more than 121.5 hours per year, goods export to 13 days and goods import to 14 days, business registration to three days, and business closure from 60 months to 30 months.

These reforms will be carried from now to the year-end.

Next year the time needed for registering for rights to ownership and use of assets will be brought down from 57 days to 14 days, settling trade disputes from 400 days to 200 days, and processing a bankruptcy request from 60 months to 24 months.

According to the city government, the competitiveness of the city is still lower than a lot of other provinces in the country.

Of the 10 sub-indexes in the Provincial Competitive Index (PCI), namely entry costs, land access and security of tenure, transparency, time costs, informal charges, proactivity of the provincial leadership, policy bias, business support services, labour training policy and legal institutions, HCM City has seven below average.

After 10 years in the PCI Survey, HCM City got into the top five of the best-governed provinces and cities in Vietnam. But its ranking was still below Da Nang, Dong Thap and Lao Cai though it is an attractive destination for many domestic and foreign investors