At a working meeting with Thanh Hoa leaders on December 23, 2018, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc highly appreciated the province’s impressive growth in recent years, but noted that Thanh Hoa still had huge potential for further growth.The Prime Minister also stressed Thanh Hoa’s current development issues, including fostering investment for essential infrastructure system development, growing western forests, developing human resources and improving the business and investment climate. He expressed that this is easier said than done, urging the province to press on efforts for a better investment and business environment.
From raising national competitivenessIn 2010, the first Vietnam National Competitiveness Report was released. At the roundtable conference, then Minister, Chairman of the Government Office Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that policy papers in the report were important scientific grounds for Vietnam to consider and opt for road development, and affirmed “We will collect evidence and report to the Government on urgent and long-term solutions in development strategy and economic administration.
After conducting research, on March 18, 2014, the first Resolution 19/NQ-CP of the Government on key tasks and solutions for better business environment and higher national competitiveness was issued. This was a great determination of the Government as it was not easy to carry out very specific criteria of ASEAN and world practices. But more than a year later, pronounced innovation and reform effects laid the groundwork for the continued issuance of Resolutions 19/NQ-CP in the following years with tougher conditions. As a result, thousands of unreasonable business conditions were abolished; specialized inspection of import and export goods were basically changed to match risk assessment principles, shifting from pre-check to post-check; and the number of online public services increased rapidly. However, Vietnam’s competitiveness ranked average. In 2018, it ranked 69th out of 190 countries on ease of doing business and 77th out of 140 countries on competitiveness. The national competitiveness index fell three rungs (74/140) versus 2017 (77/135) and 27 rungs (50/134) versus 2009.
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In 2019, the Government issued Resolution 02 on continued implementation of main tasks and solutions for better business environment and higher national competitiveness in 2019 and to 2021 at the same time with Resolution 01 on main tasks and solutions for implementation of socioeconomic development plan and State budget estimate for 2019. This illustrated the guiding spirit of “top-priority institutional breakthrough” as required by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam. “We always have to balance management requirements and create favorable conditions for business.”
To improving PCI Index
Back in 2006, Thanh Hoa province scored 45.30 points on the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), ranked 55th out of 63 provinces and cities in the country. In the 2017 - 2011 period, its PCI scores and standings did not improve much. 2012 witnessed a major milestone when the province gained 60.2 points, rising to 24th position in the rankings, 20 places higher than in 2011. In 2013, it got 61.59 points to secure 8th position on the rankings, then slid to 12th place with 60.33 points in 2014. In 2015, it returned to the Top 10 with 60.74 points. In 2016, Thanh Hoa lost 2 points to slide 21 places on the standing from 2015.
After a sharp retreat in 2016, its PCI scores climbed in 2017 - 2018. In 2017, it gained extra 3.92 points to reach 62.46 points, ranked 28th in the country. In 2018, its score further went up by 1.48 points to 63.94 points, ranked 25th nationwide (in 2013, Thanh Hoa ranked 8th out of 63 provinces and cities with just 61.59 points). Among 10 PCI component indicators, in 2018, highest indicators included enterprise support services, followed by market entry, labor training, time cost and land access.
Overall, its PCI improvement is reasonable and acceptable in the context of rising competition among provinces and cities. But, this outcome did not satisfy the province because it expected to snatch the 6th position by 2020.
The provincial government is pushing reforms of the business investment environment. This is also seen as one of four strategically disruptive stages of the Provincial Party Committee in the 2015 - 2020 term. In order to realize this political will, the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People’s Committee issued many policies and decisions, such as Conclusion 46-KL/TU of the Provincial Party Executive Committee dated October 20, 2016 on continued implementation of Resolution 02-NQ/TU dated June 27, 2011 of the 17th Provincial Party Executive Committee on strengthening of the Party's leadership in improving the local investment and business environment to 2020; Decision 1025/QD-UBND dated April 4, 2017 of the Thanh Hoa Provincial People’s Committee on Action Plan for accelerated administrative reform, strong improvement of business investment environment, business development support and competitiveness improvement of Thanh Hoa province in the 2016 - 2020 period. In 2016, right after the Government issued Resolution 35/NQ-CP dated May 16, 2016 on business support and development to 2020, Thanh Hoa was one of the first provinces to sign a memorandum of understanding on formation of a favorable business environment for enterprises on May 31, 2016.
Besides, a series of solutions and actions to concretize the above guidelines were introduced, like reviewing and simplifying administrative records and procedures and shortening the time for handling affairs; strictly implementing the publicity of regulations on administrative procedure settlement; seriously carrying out three-no regulations: (1) no harassment and bureaucracy, (2) no requirement for more than one-time supplement of documents in the course of the verification, appraisal and settlement of working processes, and (3) no late appointment.
To date, many administrative procedures relating to construction investment have been abolished to bring the time to complete investment approving procedures to 20 days (15 days fewer than the regulatory time); the time for foreign projects to get investment registration certificates to 5 days (10 days fewer) and for domestic projects to get in 10 days (5 days fewer); and the time to get business registration certificate to 3 days (2 days fewer). The Provincial People’s Committee has been executing many measures to this effect. For example, the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee issues a monthly business meeting calendar to receive feedback, promptly solving problems faced by enterprises and proposals from them. It has also sped up information technology application in combination with the task of reforming and simplifying administrative procedures, handling administrative procedures in a public, transparent manner, reducing the time and process of implementation, operating the single-window, inter-agency mechanism in all 29 provincial departments and all 27 District People's Committee agencies.
Not only being determined, Thanh Hoa province has also strongly carried out personnel work and readily dealt with any harassment of enterprises. This reality resulted in more cases of official scams than other localities in the country. Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Dinh Xung emphasized, “We cannot make any progress or conduct administrative reform if we do not deal with personnel affairs. Capable, ethical, devoted officials in charge of administrative procedures are carefully chosen to make changes.”
Motivational growthIn 2018, Thanh Hoa province achieved a record GRDP growth of 15.16%. GDP per capita was estimated at US$1,990, 1.3 times higher than in 2015. Industrial production value exceeded VND95 trillion (US$4.1 billion), 2.8 times higher than in 2015. Budget revenue reached VND23.5 trillion (over US$1 billion).
In the year, Thanh Hoa also had 3,392 new enterprises - the highest ever in a year (2.2 times higher than in 2016), bringing total enterprises to 13,410 in the province, reaching a ratio of 37.8 enterprises to 10,000 people. In 2018, the province licensed 258 direct investment projects, including 14 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects, with a total registered capital of VND21,370 billion (US$930 million) and US$96.3 million. In the year, some major projects were completed and put into use, for example, Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical Plant, Nghi Son Cooking Oil Factory and Dien Bien New Urban Area (Thanh Hoa City). Some big projects kicked off construction, such as Nghi Son II Thermal Power Plant, Project No. 1 - Thanh Hoa Central Urban Area (invested by Vingroup) and Nghi Son Steel Rolling Mill. These projects resulted in an increase in production capacity, an improvement in socioeconomic infrastructure and contributions to local growth. Some big investors like Sun Group, Vingroup, FLC Group and Nguyen Hoang continued to register large-scale investment projects of tourism, service, aviation and urban development to brighten new development prospects in the coming time.
The achievements in 2018 laid the foundation for Thanh Hoa to step into 2019 with many groundbreaking objectives like GRDP growth of over 20%, GRDP per capita of over US$2,520 or more; revenue of VND26,642 billion (US$1.15 billion), one more district and 41 more communes meeting new countryside standards, 3,000 new businesses or more; urbanization rate of 27%, 68,000 jobs created, and poverty rate decreased by 2.5% or more a year.
With the motto “creative, innovative for acceleration”, the province is focusing on solutions: (1) Removing hardships in production and business; (2) attracting and mobilizing all resources for development investment, particularly paying attention to land acquisition, investment promotion and investment environment; (3) concentrating on directing big projects; (4) effectively resolving pressing social issues; (5) maintaining and promoting cultural and social achievements; and (6) more strongly and more firmly monitoring execution of directions, strictly exercising discipline.
The consistent implementation of the above solutions and strong growth also creates good effects on improving the business and investment environment.
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