Chambers of commerce join hands for cutting red tape

Businesses register for tariff codes. The Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and European Chamber of Commerce have agreed to join forces to promote administrative reforms to improve the business climate. — VNA/VNS Photo Hong Ky

HA NOI — The Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the European Chamber of Commerce in Viet Nam (Eurocham) agreed to foster co-operation in administrative procedures reform and boost business competitiveness, following an agreement inked between the two sides on Monday.

The co-operation between the two chambers was expected to improve the Vietnamese business environment in a move to better facilitate both domestic and foreign enterprises.

Under the two-year partnership agreement, Eurocham would supply VCCI with technical and financial assistance in administrative procedure reform.

The agreement would create more opportunities for experts and businesses to suggest how administrative procedures should be effectively improved, said VCCI vice chairman Pham Gia Tuc.

Through the Advisory Council of the Government's Administrative Procedures Reform Project or Project 30, Eurocham has made suggestions in a number of sectors in Viet Nam including tax, customs, pharmaceutical and retail. Project 30 is a plan to substantially reduce the costs and risks of administrative procedures via the simplification or abolition of unnecessary procedures.

Under Project 30, ministries and Government agencies reviewed 5,500 procedures, and proposed to eliminate 453, replace 288 and amend 3,749 to make things easier for citizens and businesses.

They estimated most ministries and agencies had met requests to cut the costs of administrative procedures by 30 per cent, equal to VND30 trillion (US$1.58 billion) per year. — VNS

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US helps Vietnam with new customs procedures

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will provide non-refundable
aid of 718,600 USD for Vietnam to implement the National Single
Window Customs Project.

The agreement was signed
between Finance Deputy Minister Do Hoang Anh Tuan and the US
Ambassador to Vietnam Michael W. Michalak in Hanoi on September 15.

The project is to assist Vietnam ’s national
steering committees and agencies on the ASEAN single window (ASW)
mechanism to define ways of carrying out a plan in this field approved
on October 21, 2009. It is expected to facilitate trade, increase the
collection of taxes and strengthen State management on Vietnam ’s
import-export activities as well as ensuring the country’s commitments
to the Agreement and a protocol to establish and implement the ASW
Mechanism.

The project focuses on researching and
assessing the existing legal framework, information technology systems
and procedures and give recommendations on how to carry out
administrative procedures.

The new legal framework
on a national single window mechanism will be introduced in three
government agencies, including the General Department of Customs, the
Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Industry and Trade./.

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OECD praises drive to cut red tape

HA NOI — One of the world's leading economic advisory groups, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has praised the success of a two-year-old project to simplify State bureaucratic procedures in Viet Nam.

Known as Project 30, the three-year project was establied by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in 2007.

Under it, Viet Nam has already slashed about 30 per cent of all existing red tape.

The head of an OECD delegation that recently visited Ha Noi, Josef W.Konvitz, acknowledged that the project was playing a criti cal role in reforming public servic procedures.

Accordingto the PM's special Task Force for Administrative Procedures Reform, Konvitz said that Project 30 had already reviewed and simplified 10,000 sets of communal adminis trative procedures and 700 sets of district-level documents, slashing them down to a bare 63 sets of documents each.

This amounted to about 30 per cent of the red tape in all bureaucratic procedures.

Konvitz warned that the challenge now was to complete the reforms otherwise the situation could revert back to the complicated ways of the past.

During a working session with Vietnamese officials to assess progress, Konvitz acknowledged the commitment of the Government to achieving the reforms.

"Everybody has been working hard for the success of the project," Konvitz said.

"A few people doing business in Viet Nam have told me they are glad the project is underway and are grateful for being consulted on their experiences with administrative procedures."

Ngo Hai Phan, deputy head of a working group set up to initiate the reforms throughout the nation, said that all ministries, industries and localities nation-wide had managed to review administrative procedures as required by the Prime Minister.

The OECD and the Government Office are now assessing the progress of the reforms from 2007 to 2010. The results will be a reference for completing the programme from 2011 to 2020.

An OECD report is scheduled to be presented in November. — VNS

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