Hanoi, (VNA)🍌 – The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has been among the leaders among ministries and ministerial agencies in the field of administrative reform for several recent years.

The ministry has made many breakthroughs in cutting and simplifying administrative procedures and business conditions, contributing to improving Vietnam’s position in the Business Environment Index. The achievement was highlighted at a conference to review the administrative reform master plan for the period from 2011 to 2020 and outline directions for the period 2021-2030, which was held by the MoIT in Hanoi on August 6.

Promoting the provision of online public services

Deputy Minister of the MoIT Tran Quoc Khanh reported that the ministry has been making efforts to simplify administrative procedures, reduce business conditions, decentralize management and provide more public services online at the highest level, so as to create favourable conditions for citizens and enterprises. Accordingly, the ministry has reviewed and cut 880 out of the existing 1,216 business conditions. The list of products and commodities subject to the MoIT’s specialized inspection was also streamlined, with 1,051 out of the total 1,891 items removed, or more than 56 percent. Dang Hoang Hai, director of the E-Commerce and Digital Economy Department, said so far, all 295 central-level administrative procedures under the MoIT’s authority have been provided online at at least the second level. Of which 206 have been provided online at the third and fourth levels. More than 33,000 enterprises have registered to use the ministry’s public service portal, and the number of dossiers processed online has been increasing by 15-20 percent a year. In 2019, the ministry processed more than 1.5 million electronic dossiers via online public services at third and fourth levels, accounting for 99 percent of the total dossiers it received. As a result, the ministry’s position in the Public Administration Reform Index (PAR Index) continuously improved in the period 2016-2019. It jumped six places to the 12th place among 19 ministries and ministerial-level agencies in 2016. The next year, the ministry rose to the 5th place, and maintained the position among 18 ministries and ministerial-level agencies in 2019. Deputy Minister Khanh noted that many procedures and business and investment conditions deemed unnecessary had been removed or simplified.

Streamlining apparatus

According to Minister of the MoIT Tran Tuan Anh, in implementing Decree 98/2017/ND-CP dated August 18, (2017), the ministry has cut its units from 35 (30 administrative units and five non-productive units) to 30 (26 administrative and 4 non-productive units). The number of sections was also reduced from 197 to 123. “The ministry decided that administrative and institutional reforms are crucial in enhancing the quality of the staff and their work,” said Tran Huu Linh, director of the General Department of Market Management. At the MoIT’s conference, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Trong Thua appreciated the administrative reform conducted by the MoIT over the past time. He said the ministry manages many sectors and branches, so the operation of the ministry and its units has immediate and strong effects on the country’s socio-economic situation. Therefore, the strong reform undertaken by the MoIT over the past time was highly valued by public opinions, Thua said. Addressing the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh required the MoIT to intensify the supervision and assessment of its units’ performance in administrative reform. The ministry should make effective use of the Public Administrative Reform Index in supervision and evaluation work, and pay more attention to surveys on the public’s satisfaction about its performance. The Deputy PM also reminded the ministry to promote communication works, improve information transparency and ensure the public’s right to information access, thus creating social consensus on the implementation of tasks and targets related to administrative reform./.