The recent views and strong directions of the leaders of the provincial Party Committee and government on creating an investment and business environment have had a significant impact on the awareness and actions of the implementing levels. However, Thanh Hoa still has a lot of room for reform that can be further exploited, aiming to create more opportunities to access production resources; build a more favorable and effective business environment for enterprises.
According to statistics from the Party Committee of the Provincial People's Committee, from 2021 to present, the Provincial Party Committee, People's Council, People's Committee, and Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee have issued more than 120 documents directing and operating administrative reform (AR) work, improving the investment and business environment. The key contents are to perfect institutions; amend, supplement or issue new mechanisms and policies on support, incentives, and investment attraction; reform administrative procedures towards publicity, transparency, and shortening processing time; promote decentralization of management in all fields and apply digital transformation to promote the digital economy...
In particular, focusing on reforming the investment and business environment, with the view of accompanying investors and enterprises, along with promoting administrative reform, the Provincial People's Committee and departments and branches have strongly implemented the reduction of unnecessary administrative procedures, at the same time reducing the time to carry out many procedures, such as: procedures for approving investment policies, adjusting investment policies under the authority of the Provincial People's Committee reduced to 26 working days (30% reduction); granting business registration certificates reduced to 3 days; procedures for appraising environmental impact assessment reports reduced to 25 days and approval reduced to 10 days (36% reduction); first-time land use right registration reduced to 14 days (30% reduction); land allocation and land lease reduced to 12 days (40% reduction); change of land use purpose reduced to 12 days (20% reduction); granting planning permits reduced to 22 days (51% reduction); granting construction permits reduced to 15 days (50% reduction); Customs document inspection time is 2 hours, actual goods inspection time is 8 working hours...
Foreign affairs activities have been strongly innovated. The work of receiving feedback and recommendations to grasp and promptly resolve difficulties and obstacles for enterprises and investors in the process of investment, production and business is organized periodically. The Provincial People's Council has also issued many resolutions to orientate attracting and supporting investors and enterprises. Departments, branches and units in the province have completed the review and recommendation of competent authorities to amend and supplement legal documents to overcome overlaps, remove bottlenecks and bottlenecks, promote reform, innovation, improve the investment and business environment, attract investment resources to serve socio-economic development; immediately carry out tasks and solutions within their authority; promptly report issues beyond their authority to clear resources for production, business and promote investment.
With the implemented solutions, the business operating environment is assessed to be increasingly open and improved. From 2021 to now, the whole province has established nearly 14,000 new enterprises; attracted 350 more direct investment projects. The provincial competitiveness index in 2023 has begun to recover. The growth and budget contribution indicators of the private enterprise sector have remained quite good in the context of many difficulties and market fluctuations during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, according to the assessment of the business community, there are still many contents and aspects related to the business investment environment that departments, branches and localities need to focus on improving, such as: the work of receiving people and having regular dialogues with businesses is still not well implemented; the rate of businesses invited and participating in business dialogue activities in some localities is still low. The business community in some localities has not yet highly appreciated the seriousness in handling business recommendations. In some localities, businesses assess that "protection costs" still exist.
In particular, according to the review of component indexes in the annual survey of competitiveness at the department, branch and local level, in land access procedures, there are still quite a few localities (16/27 localities in 2023) with scores below average. The difference in scores between the top and bottom groups in this component index is also particularly large. Along with that, aspects related to business harassment and informal costs, although slightly improved each year in some indicators, have not fundamentally changed compared to before. Some departments, branches and localities still have a high rate of negative feedback from businesses; inspection and examination work is still overlapping and inspection and examination is prolonged. Regarding the fair competition index, in 2023, many units in the province will have their scores deeply reduced; of which 11/27 district-level People's Committees have "not good" scores.
According to the representative of the Provincial Business Association, although the province's PCI Index has shown signs of improvement, many important indexes are still ranked in the following tops: Market entry index is ranked 49/63; informal costs are ranked 54/63; fair competition is ranked 56/63, land access is ranked 43/63. In addition, there are still some difficulties for the investment and business environment in Thanh Hoa such as difficulties in accessing credit capital; market and policies, laws fluctuate... Most of these limitations are being assessed by the business community based on the results of handling the work of the implementing authorities, which are departments, branches, localities, and units. Therefore, to improve the investment and business environment, Thanh Hoa needs to continue to focus on improving the existing problem of "The lower-level government has not implemented the instructions of the higher level well"; overcome the fact that the departments, branches, districts and towns still have many limitations in solving problems for businesses and people such as: avoiding responsibility, "kicking the ball" on the problem, still "seizing power" in their management areas; not implementing well the policies to support business development.
Article and photos: Tung Lam
Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/con-nhieu-du-dia-cai-cach-moi-truong-dau-tu-kinh-doanh-tu-cap-co-so-233473.htm
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