Business support from local authorities: Both sides win!

With specific and creative actions, many provinces and cities have positively improved the business and investment environment to support businesses to overcome difficulties, promoting the development of local businesses and the national economy.

In Hanoi, the business community has continuously grown in quantity and quality. Remarkably, the small and medium business communities comprise 45% of GRDP, contributing over 30% of the city's budget. According to Dr Mac Quoc Anh, Vice President, General Secretary of the Hanoi Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, this achievement is thanks to the dynamic policies of the city to improve the business environment and attract more investments and various measures to support production and business such as fully implementing newly issued policies of the Government on exemption, reduction and extension of tax and fee payment deadlines; lending interest rate support; promulgating a plan to support small and medium enterprises from 2020 to 2025.

Business support has been spread throughout the country with creative solutions for administrative procedure renovation to benefit the business environment and improve the efficiency of business support implementation.

Holding the first position for 6 consecutive years according to the ranking of the provincial competitiveness index (PCI), Mr. Nguyen Xuan Ky, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Council of Quang Ninh province, said that the province always creates an open and transparent investment and business environment, fair competition and equal access to resources, especially land and labor among businesses, investors, members economy, especially small and medium enterprises. In particular, the province has persistently implemented the model of organizing the development space of "one centre, two multi-dimensional routes, two breakthroughs, three dynamic zones", opening up many opportunities for people and businesses in the field of economic development of trade, tourism, service, industry and agriculture, marine economy.

In Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, Mr. Nguyen Van Tho, Chairman of the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau, shared that the province identifies businesses as well as friends and relatives, always creating the most favorable environment for investors and is ready to shake hands to lift difficulties.

Therefore, these local businesses highly appreciate the model of "No waiting Thursday" (selecting simple administrative procedures to resolve within the same day with a processing time from 30 minutes to 60 minutes or half-time), "Listening to the people on Saturdays" (organizing dialogues with citizens to receive and resolve petitions promptly) and "Digital signing of large-format maps" (facilitating individuals, an organization in using online public services). Every day, the provincial Government also spends time from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. to listen to businesses and solve problems immediately.

Similarly, Dong Thap province also offers many ways to show dynamism and creativity in public service provisions, such as deploying the model of "Administrative space in service" to promote the implementation of the friendly Government, accompanying people and businesses. This space is designed in a friendly way, close to people and businesses, which is related to the province's very successful "business coffee" model.

In Hai Phong, the city government has established and put into operation a working group to deal with the order and procedures of important projects in the city and a working group to deal with the order and procedures of important tourism development projects to promptly and comprehensively remove arising difficulties and problems, and accelerate the project implementation progress of investors. As a result, according to the PCI 2022 results, 89% of businesses in Hai Phong rated "The Provincial People's Committee is dynamic and creative in solving newly arising problems", and 92% of businesses said that "the difficulties and obstacles have been promptly resolved through dialogues and business contacts in the province." Furthermore, in 2023, the "red phoenix flower" city will begin to implement the model of "connecting conditional business license procedures" to facilitate businesses and investors in carrying out licensing conditional business procedures.

According to the assessment in the PCI 2022 report, to remove current difficulties, central and local governments have been very proactive in building a legal framework and applying favorable measures to simplify administrative procedures; lower the cost burden of administrative procedures and inspection; enable more favorable access to policy and legal information, which are highly appreciated by the business community.

Mr Dau Anh Tuan, Deputy General Secretary and Head of the Legal Department of the Vietnam Confederation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said that the companionship and support of the authorities of provinces and cities across the country to support businesses' careers is very important. However, provinces and cities need to continue to make more efforts to create a favorable business and investment environment. In addition, some administrative areas need paying more attention to promote reform in the coming time, such as taxes, land, social insurance, fire prevention and safety, and conditional business license procedures. Furthermore, it is necessary to continue facilitating enterprises in accessing information and reducing informal costs in the coming years.