Foreign businesses set for smoother start-ups

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told the international business community at last week’s Vietnam Business Forum that administrative procedures would continue to be simplified and barriers hindering businesses would be removed to facilitate their operations.

“Vietnam’s business and investment environment will see remarkable changes from 2015,” he stressed.

Dung also underlined the government’s Resolution 19/NQ-CP, dated March 12, 2015, on key tasks and solutions to continue improving Vietnam’s business climate and competitiveness for 2015-2016.

Under the resolution, the average time for tax payment and social packages in 2015 will be reduced to 121.5 hours and 39.5 hours per year, respectively. The average time for starting a new business will be six days, and it will take some 36 days for enterprises to connect with the national power grid.

In 2016, such procedures will be even further simplified, according to the resolution.

“All these targets must be achieved”, Dung stressed.

A Vietnam is believed to be at an important turning-point for attracting high-quality FDI and further growth, the international business community has suggested that passing Resolution 19 is an important change to the government’s policy, but figuring out how to put it into practice quickly is another concern.

“Resolution 19 lays out key indicators for progress, and we urge more effort to be sure that the policy is understood and implemented at the government agencies’ working levels”, said American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam’s Chairwoman Sherry Boger.

“There should be regular and meaningful government consultation and cooperation with business, including FDI, at the working level, on a monthly and quarterly basis to assess progress. And there must be ‘concrete targets’ to improve the business environment,” she proposed.

While lamenting over complicated procedures in many sectors, Korea Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam’s chairman Ryu Hang Ha raised his biggest concern over lagging power projects, which could cause an energy crisis in Vietnam over the next few year, due to delayed approval from authorities.

These projects will be conducted in turn by different countries starting from Russia, Japan, and then the Republic of Korea.

However, the commencement date of the first nuclear power project, Ninh Thuan 1, has been continuously delayed.

“The government should shorten the approval process for power projects around the southern area of Vietnam. The power projects should be performed with the involvement of trusted and well-known power investors”, he suggested.

“Regarding nuclear power projects, it takes too long for various approval procedures, which causes delay in project commencement. Therefore,  we sincerely ask to speed up the process, and particularly we also kindly ask Vietnam’s government for early approval of the Korean power project’s pre-feasibility study, so that it can commence as soon as possible,” he continued.