Hanoi (VNA) – Subjective and objectiveshortcomings have hampered the national single window (NSW) mechanism fromfully benefiting businesses, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has said.

He made the assessment at a meeting of thenational steering committee for the ASEAN Single Window, the NSW and tradefacilitation in Hanoi on December 8.

He attributed the flaws to lax coordinationamong ministries and sectors in administrative procedures.

The most important point is that ministries,sectors, authorities at all levels, enterprises and people must be fully awareof the NSW, he said, repeating the Government’s commitment to providing optimalconditions for businesses.

Highlighting the NSW’s benefits, Hue said ithelps save custom clearance costs and time and creates an attractive investmentclimate, improving national competitiveness. The mechanism is also useful tobuilding a modern administration, a component of an e-government.

Only 13 percent or 36 of the 280 administrativeprocedures are performed through the NSW. Meanwhile, Vietnam targets 80 percentand 100 percent of those procedures to be handled by the NSW by 2018 and 2020,respectively.

The Deputy PM asked for all administrativeprocedures related to state management of imports, exports, goods in transit,people and vehicles entering, exiting or in transit in Vietnam to be handledthrough the NSW at level 4 – the highest level of online public services.

The Government aims to put Vietnam in the topfour ASEAN countries in terms of administrative procedures settlement by 2020.

Those objectives are not easy to achieve, andutmost efforts must be made to realise them, Hue stressed.

He underlined the need to persuade businesses tohave their procedures handled through the NSW as the mechanism won’t beeffective if businesses don’t use it.

Ministries and sectors must overhaul legalframeworks and streamline administrative procedures since most obstacles comefrom this step. The national steering committee should listen to the opinions offirms to minimise irksome procedures, he added.

Ten ministries and sectors have used the NSW asof November 2016. 213,000 administrative dossiers of more than 8,350 businesseswere handled through the NSW by November 25, said General Director of theGeneral Department of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Can.

According to the World Bank, Vietnam climbed 15places from 2015 to the 93rd position among 190 economies in terms of tradingacross borders. The time needed to carry out export and import procedures is108 and 138 hours, respectively. 

While the time for document compliance forimports was cut from 106 hours to 76 hours, while that for exports was reducedto 50 hours from 83 hours. The cost for document compliance for both importsand exports is about 2.5 USD per hour, saving 600 million USD in the first 10months of 2016.-VNA