Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently signed a decision to install Dr Vu Tien Loc, President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and Chairman of the Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD), as Vice Chairman of the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement. To learn about the importance and effort of VCCI in building a sustainable business community, the Vietnam Business Forum Magazine’s reporter has an interview with Dr Vu Tien Loc. Minh Xuan reports.
Could you tell us more about VCCI’s work and your new role at the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement?
First and foremost, I feel very proud to be entrusted by the Government to assume this awesome responsibility; this is not only my personal joy, but also a shared responsibility of VCCI and the business community. According to the Prime Minister’s decision, I will be Vice Chairman of the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement and the Chair of the Committee on Public-Private Partnership, a specialised committee under the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement.
This shows the recognition and appreciation of the Government for the enduring and fruitful efforts of VCCI and the business community over the past years to give a helping hand to spread stories about sustainable development and solutions to national competitiveness improvement.
In the coming time, VCCI’s immediate task at the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement is to perfect the apparatus of the PPP Committee to quickly start operations as expected by the committee. We will select some members of the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement, leaders of research institutes, representatives of business associations and enterprises, and domestic and international specialists as members of the PPP Committee.
The inauguration of the PPP Committee reaffirms the increasingly important role of the business sector in realising the National Action Plan for Sustainable Development and National Competitiveness Improvement.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam, VCCI President Vu Tien Loc and other distinguished delegates at National Conference on Sustainable Development 2018
How do you assess the importance of achieving sustainable development in general and building the sustainable business community in particular?
In this context, Vietnam is positioning itself in the trajectory of global competitiveness. Not to be left behind on this path, it not only must go fast but also go steadily. To secure our competitiveness, we must be sustainable.
Sustainable development cannot be defined within any national boundary, but necessitates the cooperation of all nations with global efforts. At the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) 2018 in the United States in July, more than 100 ministers attended while only 77 ministers were presented here in 2017. Clearly, countries are placing greater emphasis on and stronger commitment to the 2030 Agenda as well as the 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). HLPF 2018 key messages are: Business forces are generating more momentum to push forward the sustainable development ‘ship’; cooperation links are constants in the 2030 Agenda quiz - No Agenda or any Action Plan will be successful without cooperation between the State and the private sector and stakeholders; companies need better methods to gauge operating performance in general and impacts of business performances on delivering SDGs in particular; and technology will leverage enormous transformations on the basis of delivering SDGs.
This shows that what the world is moving towards is also the way that Vietnam is going on. We have been materialising Vietnam’s efforts through the Vietnam 2035 Report, the Government’s Resolution 19 on improving the business environment and the national competitiveness, the National Action Plan on Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement, and the Prime Minister’s Directive 16 on strengthening direct approach to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
For its part, as a representative of the business community, VCCI has set its sights on advising the Government and working with stakeholders to build the most sustainable business community for Vietnam.
How has VCCI/VBCSD endeavoured to build a sustainable business community?
As I have shared the vision of building a sustainable business community, we need efforts from businesses themselves and governance improvement is a top priority. However, not only Vietnamese enterprises are competitive, but the Vietnamese business environment must also be competitive relative to its peers in other countries. The Government understood this very clearly. Since 2014, it has issued annual Resolutions 19/NQ-CP on business environment and national competitiveness improvements with the purpose of shaping our business environment on par with four leading ASEAN countries. The series of these resolutions assign specific tasks to every ministry, sector and locality.
In Resolution 19, VCCI and business associations are regularly assigned to carry out independent surveys about the quality of administrative service to recommend the Government, collect policy feedback, discover hardships and entanglements faced by enterprises for the purpose of improving the investment and business environment, and carry out business support solutions to enhance their competitiveness.
Since its inception, VBCSD under VCCI has always supported the business community to achieve sustainable development and enhance corporate competitiveness. In addition to communications and awareness-raising on sustainable development, VBCSD researched and developed the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI) - an effective tool and solution for improving governance quality towards sustainability. To date, this index has been widely adopted by enterprises, not only used when they join the annual Programme on Benchmarking and Announcing Sustainable Businesses, but also used for their strategy planning and operational monitoring. After three years of deployment, their effects recognised and appreciated by the Government, the CSI and the Programme were added to Governmental Resolution 19 of 2018. This is also motivation for VBCSD - VCCI to launch stronger, more inclusive activities to build a more sustainable business community in the coming time.
Furthermore, VBCSD - VCCI also has a series of other initiatives like establishing the Centre for Circular Economy to support enterprises to adopt the circular economy; cooperating with the International Trade Centre of the United Nations to develop smart agriculture in Vietnam; and setting up the Consultative Group on Sustainable Development and the Digital Evolution Age. It has also implemented a myriad of other programmes to power up SME capacity, enabling them to engage deeper in global value chains of major business groups, or to promote the green finance model.
Trusted by the Government and the business community, VCCI and VBCSD will continue to make important contributions to the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement in particular, and to the delivery of sustainable development and competitiveness improvement goals in general.
Our green journey has been led by an enabling government which always listens to and shares with business. Now, that journey needs more green footprints of enterprises. Active changes in business thinking and pioneering steps on the path to sustainable development are the only path for the development of humanity, the passport for the Vietnamese business community to reach out to the world market and stay on par with the global business community.
Thank you very much!
Vietnamese
