>>> Hai Duong jumps 34 places in PCI rankings
 

Over the past time, with a determination to heighten the ranking of the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), Hai Duong has drastically improved the business and investment environment to build trust with the business community.

Facing limitations

In 2020, with 62.52 points, Hai Duong’s PCI still ranked 47th out of 63 provinces and cities but got 1.33 points fewer than in 2019.

Despite the objective impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the score, leading to the decrease, a set-back of authorities and professional agencies in economic management competence was undeniable. The poor PCI ranking became a “hot” issue at many meetings and discussions of agencies, boards, and sectors in the province.

Regarding the absolute score, Hai Duong’s PCI in 2020 increased compared to 2016 (the year the province was placed 36th in the country); however, in general and the Red River Delta, the province did not have a breakthrough and tended to lag behind.

Of 10 sub-indexes, the province had four improved, including Land Access, Labor and Training, Business Support Services, and Transparency. Nonetheless, these sub-indexes were still unstable over the years, and their rankings rose insignificantly.

Entry Costs, Informal Charges, Proactivity of Provincial Leadership, and Legal Institutions sub-indexes were weak points in the province's PCI as they fell far behind other provinces and cities in the region and the whole country.

Looking directly at the limitations, Hai Duong dissected the reasons why the province's PCI did not increase but decreased, including administrative procedure reform’s failure to meet requirements.

Coordination among State agencies in removing difficulties and obstacles of enterprises and investors was limited. Some work had to go through many levels and branches, resulting in prolongation, loss of investment opportunities, and increase of informal costs.

There was not any breakthrough in attraction of investment with few high-tech projects, supporting industries, and high-quality services.

The number of businesses slowly increased, while small- and medium-sized enterprises were not given proper attention…

The provincial authorities determined that subjective factors were the main reasons for these slowly-remedied limitations. In which, many Party committees, authorities, and heads of agencies and units did not really consider improvement of the investment environment as a very important task for the common development. Therefore, they neither changed their thinking nor took the initiative in leading and directing implementation.

Part of officials in charge of directly giving advice and performing administrative procedures related to business and investment caused troubles, creating barriers to the provincial investment and business environment.

The implementation of administrative procedures and access to resources in the province were not really transparent and public…

Drastic improvement
 

The biggest breakthrough in the efforts to improve the province's PCI is the issuance of Resolution No. 08-NQ/TU of the provincial Party Committee’s Executive Board on strongly improving the business and investment environment and the provincial competitiveness in the 2021 – 2025 period.

With the motto “Party committees and authorities serve the people and accompany businesses,” the provincial investment environment has improved in quality since investment promotion was enhanced.

Recent meetings between the provincial leaders and large corporations and enterprises are the clearest demonstration of the province’s innovations in investment promotion.

Large corporations from South Korea, Japan, India, etc. assessed that Hai Duong had many strengths in luring high-quality projects and expressed their desire to be facilitated to study and suggest investment.

Last March, Hai Duong held the first seminar to attract South Korean FDI, thereby laying a foundation for the province to access prestigious and quality FDI flows from many countries.

The provincial Investment Promotion and Support Board was established to remove difficulties of enterprises in accessing investment.

Aside from investment promotion activities, Hai Duong considers planning as the key to attracting and managing investment effectively and sustainably.

The provincial authorities have hastened review, adjustment, and planning for construction of sectors and fields and planning and investment in the infrastructure of industrial parks and clusters.

Plans are publicized, creating favorable conditions for businesses and investors to learn, study, propose, and deploy investment.

The provincial authorities have set up a working team to promptly remove difficulties and obstacles in investment attraction, and enterprises are always accompanied by professional agencies in the process of researching and attracting investment.

Besides, special importance is attached to organizational arrangement and perfection of employment positions with a resolution to eliminate the acts of causing troubles and extorting businesses.

Defining administrative reform, especially administrative procedure reform, as one of decisive conditions to win enterprises’ favor, the provincial authorities have shortened the time to process a number of administrative procedures related to investment.

Specifically, the registration time for business establishment fell from three to a maximum of two days, and it now takes seven days to grant an investment registration certificate to a project not subject to investment decision instead of 15 days.

The time required to process procedures for land allocation and lease for enterprises newly established from business households, small- and micro-sized enterprises reduced from 30 to no more than 10 days.

The procedure for appraising environmental impact requires 20 instead of 30 days. The time needed to appraise and issue construction permits was shortened compared with the average of 31.5 days.

The granting time of work permits to foreigners fell from seven to three days…

The shorter processing time of administrative procedures has created favorable conditions, lowering costs and saving time for investors.

The provincial authorities have also focused on promoting the implementation of public administrative services at levels 3 and 4 to both modernize management and ensure accuracy and timeliness in the course of handling procedures for people and businesses.

With great efforts, high determination, and specific and drastic measures, Hai Duong hopes to improve its competitiveness to become a “promising land” of investors and businesses.

NGUYEN MO