Building Solid Success on Sustained Ground

Since the early days of its provincial establishment, the government of Dak Nong province has actively carried out various investment promotion activities and issued a number of effective investment incentive policies that positively impacted economic and social development. In its economic development vision, in the coming time, the province will continue to complete the construction of catalytic infrastructure to attract capital for industrial development.

Expressing high determination

Located at the southwestern entry to the Central Highlands region, Dak Nong province is exerting a strong appeal to investors because of its strengths in agriculture, minerals, tourism, cultural values and investment incentives. In 2018, Dak Nong province achieved the highest Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and the biggest increase among 63 provinces and cities ranked, scoring 58.16 points, an increase of 3.04 points over 2017. However, its ranking did not improve and still stood low compared to other provinces and cities nationwide. Determined to increase the PCI standing in 2019 by 2-3 places from 2018 and further raise the PCI score and ranking in the following years to the group of well-performing localities, standing 40-50 out of 63 provinces and cities, Dak Nong has adopted many strong solutions to enhance the business investment environment.

Mr. Luu Van Trung, Director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Dak Nong, emphasized that “The PCI itself is a ‘race track’ that always requires a level of translational progress by increasing scores gained by each province and in the national context. In fact, by score, if the PCI of Dak Nong always grew. Specifically, in the three years from 2016 to 2018, among 10 PCI sub-indexes, four increased: land access, fair competition, dynamism and business support services; and eight improved over 2017. The above results confirmed the province's efforts for a better investment environment and higher competitiveness through administrative procedure reform and policy reform, active and effective business support policies, and effective government-business dialogues. However, there are still many bottlenecks that need more powerful and drastic solutions to clear the way for this race to bring the province to the finish line soon.”

Accordingly, in 2019, the province launched many strong solutions to improve the business investment environment. Based on the Dak Nong PCI Improvement Project in 2019, the planning and investment sector focused on closely following the Government's instructions on improving the business investment climate, providing business support and start-up support, and reforming administrative procedures. At the same time, it closely kept to the direction of the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial People’s Council and the Provincial People’s Committee on business support and its working agenda assigned to relevant agencies.

Improving executive quality

One of the strong and focused solutions, which is highly appreciated, is the province carries out the District and Department Competitiveness Index (DDCI). The launch of the DDCI Index will provide provincial leaders with a tool to monitor and evaluate the performance of departments, branches and districts as an objective basis for assessing their executive quality, from which it helps identify areas that need further improvement for each unit, as well as strengths that need to be promoted. This will help narrow the gap and improve the effect of direction and administration of provincial leaders on provincial, district and city administration. In addition, DDCI also helps Dak Nong leaders promptly grasp hardships faced by the local business community so that timely solutions can be solved. At the same time, this is also a useful channel to collect suggestions, recommendations and initiatives from enterprises for reforming administrative procedures, or ideas for improving the business environment, creating favorable conditions for local business development and increasing the attraction of the local investment environment.

According to Trung, the DDCI Index of Dak Nong province consists of eight component indicators: Transparency, dynamism, time cost, informal charges, fair competition, business support, legal institutions and leadership role. Based on these component indexes, it will propose criteria to measure the sentiment level of businesses about operating quality in each specific index. To get the combined DDCI score, component index points will be integrated. The overall DDCI will be the weighted average of all component index points.

So far, the DDCI Project 2019 was completed and expected to announce the results in April 2020. The formulation and implementation of this project clearly showed the province's innovation determination to improve the quality of economic management and the business investment environment, and remove inconsistency in administration. Hopefully, DDCI will soon become an effective reference tool for Dak Nong to work out strategic planning and socioeconomic development planning, and focus on developing a dynamic and sustainable business community. It is expected that through DDCI, Dak Nong's position on the PCI rankings will be gradually improved in the coming years, making Dak Nong an ideal destination for the business community and domestic and international investors.

“With the importance of PCI - a tool for domestic and foreign investors to make their investment decisions, Dak Nong places high determination on further enhancing the investment and business environment, raising the quality of trade promotion in a more practical and effective manner to successfully achieve objectives. With the active and drastic spirit of the authorities, businesses and people, PCI will be a solid ‘tripod’ foundation for Dak Nong to make a transformational change, modernize the economy and improve people's lives,” he emphasized.

By Han Luong, Vietnam Business Forum