Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged ministries to hasten the process of drafting decrees providing guidelines for investment and business activities. - VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam.

The PM asked for the accelerated progress after the Government discussed the implementation of enterprise and investment laws late last month.

According to the Investment Law 2014, ministries, sectors and localities are not allowed to issue business conditions. The existing business conditions stipulated in circulars of ministries will become invalid as from July 1, 2016.

There is a need for decrees on business conditions to substitute for the circulars from that date.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment said there are thousands of such conditions stipulated in hundreds of existing circulars, meaning reviewing regulations will be a heavy job as ministries only have a little more than a month to complete the job.

Some ministries asked the Government to extend the time for drafting new decrees, but Phuc said they must be resolute in submitting the draft decrees by May 30.

"After this deadline, ministers and heads of ministerial-level agencies who have not presented the draft decrees must take responsibility before the Government and the Prime Minister," he said.

According to Government portal chinhphu.vn, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is actively collecting opinions to draft a decree on agricultural business conditions, to replace all of its 37 circulars in this area.

The Ministry of Health is drafting a series of decrees on conditions for food production and trade, as well as advertisements and inspections. The Ministry of Transport is drawing up a decree on conditions for businesses dealing with ship crews and steerage training services.

Phuc also asked the Government Office and the Ministry of Justice to shorten the time in assessing the draft decrees when these documents are available.

While the PM is determined to ease business activities and strengthen market confidence, industry insiders said cutting business licencing procedures required by authorities at different levels remained the biggest challenge for the Government.

The business community expects drastic actions by ministries and sectors to support the PM’s determination, they said.

The Government has also asked ministers and chairpersons of provincial and municipal people’s committees to build action plans to improve the country’s business environment and competitiveness for the third year in a row.

Phuc ordered officials to present their plans with a vision until 2020 by the end of this month to concretise Resolution No 19-2016/NQ-CP, which he signed late last month.

The resolution required officials to publicise administrative procedures, eliminate unsuitable business conditions and establish proper systems to deal with requests from people and businesses.

Civil servants who are irresponsible or cause trouble for people and businesses will be strictly dealt with, the resolution stated.

The Government expected the current number of businesses in Viet Nam to double to a million by 2020.