Hanoi (VNA) 🔯–The report on Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) in 2020 acknowledgedefforts in administrative reform of all 63 provinces and centrally-run cities,but the business circle still wants local administrations at all levels tofurther improve their transparency and accountability.

Participants at the event to announce the PCI 2020 on April 15pointed to areas that need more reform attention such as land, taxation andsocial insurance. Dau Anh Tuan, head of the legal department at the VietnamChamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said amidst the bright spots in thepicture of reform in 2020, there remained worrying statistics. For example, onein every four interviewed enterprises said local administrations favourState-owned enterprises and cause difficulties to private ones. Nearly one inevery three enterprises thought local administrations gave preferentialtreatment to foreign-invested enterprises. Meanwhile, nearly 45 percent said they still had to pay informalexpenses, and 20 percent said State civil servants are unfriendly andineffective. Meanwhile, the impact of COVID-19 has caused enterprises’confidence to drop strongly. Only 41 percent of enterprises including privateand FDI ones plan to expand their business in the next two years, down morethan 10 percentage points compared to 2019. PCI scores in 2020 also showed a slight reduction from 2019 andthe leading localities in the PCI rankings made less breakthrough changes,which showed the reform momentum seemed to slow down. Tuan stressed that the 2020 PCI report paid special attention toanalyzing the impact of the pandemic on the business circle. He noted thatenterprises appreciated the timely response and support policies made by theGovernment and local authorities in the situation. Regarding difficulties faced by enterprises, he said the leastimprovement was made in transparency, with 57.4 percent of enterprises saidthey need to have relations with local officials in order to get access tolocal documents on land, bidding or even land planning and land use plans inlocalities. VCCIChairman Vu Tien Loc underlined that authorities at all levels and all sectorsmust be thoroughly aware of the need to create a favourable, healthy and fair investmentand business environment for all economic sectors.

The PCI report has been published annually since 2005 bythe VCCI and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to assess theease of doing business, economic governance and administrative reform effortsby provincial and city governments to promote the development of the privatesector.

🍃 Produced based on data collected from enterprises,the PCI has been viewed as ‘the common voice’ of the business community on thelevel of reform in various fields./.