Vietnam Trying to Reform Business Registration Procedures

 

Mr. Nguyen Bich Dat, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, said the Vietnamese economy will create 320,000 new enterprises and 2.7 million new jobs from 2006 to 2010. Therefore, apart from the improvement of the business environment, the administrative reform is considered a necessity to realise these goals because this creates favourable conditions for the commencement and the development of an enterprise, the market cost reduction and other business cost reduction, and encourages enterprises of unofficial groups to formalise their business operation.

 

Mr Le Quang Manh, Director of the Business Registration Office under the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Department, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said the business registration is the first step of an enterprise to join the market. However, the current business registration system has a lot of shortcomings.

 

The overview report on the six-year implementation of the Enterprise Law 1999 by the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM) showed that business registration offices now only focused on licensing, not business registration instruction, information system provision and management, business check and supervision.

 

After six years of implementing the Enterprise Law, the modern information system for enterprises has not been taken shape. The current business registration system is now not synchronous from the central to grassroots levels.

 

As for operational companies, the lack of a legal database about registered companies has triggered high transaction costs. They cannot exploit legal and reliable information about their business partners at a low cost, especially if they register business in other localities.

 

Manh said Hai Phong City has applied the one-door policy business registration since the end of July, which will finish in 15 days. However, this centralisation can only resolve one matter, that is, a shorter licensing time and a fewer presence of relevant bodies. A lot of shortcomings in registration procedures are out of reach.

 

Mr. Le Quang Manh, Director of the Business Registration Office under the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Department, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said the first phase of the business registration reform lasts from July 2006 to July 2007. The main contents comprise of the compilation of circulars to provide necessary instructions in reform implementation; cooperation agreements between relevant organs like taxation, statistics and police; the design of operating process and system, the construction of training programmes for 64 business registration bodies in all 64 provinces and cities.

 

Also according to Mr. Quang, the model of business e-registration can be activated in the first quarter of 2009. First of all, each enterprise will be provided a unique business code, which is accepted and used in all State enterprise management bodies.

 

This is a national database of business registration, enabling the integration of the information of the business community and State management bodies. Manh said the standardisation of business registration processes will be prerequisite for the computerisation and automation of business registration.