This is the fourth time in the four consecutive years the Government has issued a Resolution on tasks to improve the business climate and national competitiveness, showing the country’s strategic breakthrough effort in institution reform, with the focus on administrative procedures.

 

This has contributed to Vietnam’s improved business environment ranking done by the World Bank (WB) in 2016, now standing at 82nd from the 91st – the highest improvement level since 2008. 

 

Vietnam is aiming to reach the level of ASEAN 4 countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines) later this year in terms of business environment; become one of the top 70 and 80 countries in terms of start-ups and protection of minority investors, respectively; and among the top 30 countries listed by the World Bank in transparency and access to credit. 

 

By 2020, the country also targets being among the top 40 countries ranked by the World Economic Forum in access to loans, achieving the average level of ASEAN 4 countries in competitiveness and that of ASEAN 5 (Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines) in terms of the Global Innovation Index released by the World Intellectual Property Organisation. 

 

On e-government, comprehensive reform will be conducted in telecommunications infrastructure, human capital and online service indexes, so that the country will be rated among the top 80 countries in the UN e-government ranking.

 

By the end of this year, most public services involving citizens and businesses will be launched at Level 3 and Level 4 which allows online payments and applications.

 

The government asked ministers and leaders of ministry-level agencies, government units, centrally-run municipal and provincial People’s Committees to devise action plans before February 28 to execute the resolution. 

 

Municipal and provincial authorities were requested to launch one-stop shop models to simplify and shorten time for administrative procedures involving taxes and fees.