Mai Tien Dung, Minister of the Government Office and Head of the Prime Minister’s working group, announced the Prime Minister’s instruction on February 28 during an inspection of 16 ministries regarding their assigned tasks in reforming trade clearance and reduction of unnecessary business conditions.
Ministries must remove 50 percent of goods subject to special inspections under their authority
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He said that monthly inspections with at least four administrative units from the central to local level are a must. Reports on ministries’ administrative reforms will be submitted to the Prime Minister, with the next minister-level inspection starting March 15.
The Government will sit with ministries to discuss the June 30 deadline, and will also invite businesses and industry associations to revise legal documents regarding business permits and inspection reductions beforehand, he said.
At the meeting, representatives from the ministries also reported their plans for the reduction of cumbersome specialized inspections and unnecessary business conditions. The Ministry of Transport, for example, announced that it would cut 282 business conditions regulated in 20 decrees under its authority next time.
According to the government, the ministries will have to cut 50 percent of goods subject to special inspections under their authority. Another 50 percent reduction in specialized inspection procedures must be also applied.
Currently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has the highest number of 7,698 goods subject to special inspections under its authority. The numbers for the ministries of Health, Information and Communications, Natural Resources and Environment, and Transport are 802, 143, 110 and 128, respectively.
Vietnam also applies 3,571 business conditions for 243 industries and sectors under the authorities of 13 ministries.
Do Hoang Anh Tuan, Deputy Minister of Finance and member of the Prime Minister’s working group, gave the recommendation that information technology should be applied, in order to better manage trade activities and business licenses.
As annual national trade value is now around a staggering US$400 billion, Tuan suggested moving towards 100 percent online administration, applying it at 171 national border gates to control civil servants, customs officers and administrators.
He also noted that the amount of specialized or lengthy inspections, as compared to normal ones, has decreased from 35 percent to about 26 percent in 2017, but is still much higher than developed countries’ average of 7 percent. This is something in need of significant improvement in 2018, he added.
During yesterday’s discussion on the results of these ministerial reforms, some experts saw progress across different ministries as uneven.
Tran Dinh Thien, director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, said that the reform momentum has been creating high confidence for businesses, with detailed lists of reduction and policy reforms.
However, he noted that ministries must make ‘real cuts’, reiterating the Prime Minister’s opinion that the gap between words, actions and achievements is not easy to overcome.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Dinh Cung, director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said that despite receiving the same Government directions, there are ministries with good reform results, like the Ministry of Industry and Trade or the Ministry of Health, while some others have barely laid their reform plans.
He warned that such procrastination will be difficult to overcome, adding that even the fastest ministry took up to five months to implement any decree, while the slowest ones seemed to be completely idle.
