HÀ NỘI — Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Việt Nam has not stopped its efforts to achieve the 'dual goals' of improving the business environment and enhancing national competitiveness, an official has said.

“The Government has been determined to improve the business environment, enhance competitiveness, promote innovation, and towards sustainable development,” Deputy Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam said in the Government conference with localities in Hà Nội on Monday.

Reform activities must be a focus, he said.

Đam said Việt Nam had stuck to the indexes of UN system agencies and prestigious international organisations like the World Bank and World Economic Forum, adding it would use more short term and fundamental factors related to the business environment such as indicators on human resource development, e-Government development, and innovation capacity in the indexes.

Đam said the indexes were evaluated every one or two years by international organisations and Việt Nam had shown how it had been improving.

“Việt Nam's business environment ranking increased 20 places, from 90th in 2015 to 70th in 2019. The national competitiveness rating was ranked 77th in 2018 and 67th in 2019, tourism competitiveness increased 12 places, from 75th in 2015 to 63rd in 2019, logistics performance increased 25 places, from 64th in 2016 to 39th last year while the global innovation ranking increased 17 places from 59th in 2016 to 42nd in 2020," he said.

The deputy PM said the sustainable development ranking had increased 34 places from 88th in 2016 to 49th this year in the UN rankings.

“That Việt Nam is ranked 49 while the ranking of per capita income is far from 100 is a concrete testament to the superiority of the local regime," he said.

According to the Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), 81.3 per cent of surveyed enterprises this year said that "State officials handle their jobs effectively" (the rate was 67.4 per cent in 2016), 73.6 per cent enterprises said "State officials are friendly" in the process of handling procedures (it was only 59 per cent in 2016) and 57.5 per cent of enterprises rated the business environment as favourable, up from 51.7 per cent in 2017.

Đam also pointed out areas with no better rankings such as settlement of corporate bankruptcy, non-tariff barriers, sustainable ecosystem protection, register property, protection of intellectual property and road infrastructure connection.

He said due to the impact of the COVID-19, many rankings were not published, but many indexes had been well promoted in Việt Nam such as online public services, e-commerce and non-cash payments.

As 2021 is the starting year for the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress, Đam mentioned seven key groups of indicators on the business environment including construction permits, registration of property, settlement of contract disputes, settlement of corporate bankruptcy, quality of land administration, application of information technology and quality of vocational training.

He also mentioned four main tasks known as overcoming weaknesses and limitations in connection and co-ordination between agencies, directing digital transformation, having a medium and long-term strategy and plan with clear and specific goals to improve the ranking of sustainable development while developing a sustainable business community and supporting businesses and people to restore production and business and overcome the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. — VNS