Hanoi (VNA) - The Prime Minister's working group said on August 22 thatministries had drastically cut business conditions and administrativeprocedures in order to facilitate businesses’ activities, but more still needsto be done.

Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung chaired a workingsession with 14 ministries on the issuance of documents instructing theimplementation of business-related laws and the removal of business conditionsby these ministries.

“We have done quite well in removing cumbersome business conditions but thereare still comments that the real effectiveness of such removal needs to bereviewed,” Dung said.

Ministries had cut and simplified more than 3,400 out of 6,200 businessconditions. More than 6,700 products that previously needed specialised checkswere removed from a list of almost 10,000 products.

“In terms of quantity, such numbers show the real determination of ministriesin aggressively facilitating businesses’ activities and greatly improving thebusiness environment,” he said.

Nguyen Dinh Cung, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management,said such reforms had been highly appreciated by society and the businesscommunity and had a real, positive impact on the economic growth rate.

However, he added that the reforms still needed to be done in a more aggressivemanner.

According to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), there arestill a lot of legal documents on specialised management and inspection (355documents), which is very difficult for enterprises to search and update.

In many cases, overlapping inspections on certain products still exists – oneitem is subject to many forms of management by different departments in thesame ministry.

Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung cited examplessuch as radars, which are now under the management of both the Ministry ofInformation and Communications and the Ministry of Transportation, or dairyingredients, which are now under the management of both the Ministry ofIndustry and Trade; Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; and Ministryof Health.

He quoted VCCI President Vu Tien Loc as saying that there were businessconditions, which instead of being removed, turned into business standards orcriteria. Or some agencies cut red tape or conditions just for the sake oftheir “achievements”.

Cung from CIEM said the removal of some conditions didn’t bring about clear andreal benefits.

“It’s time for real and practical business conditions removal,” he said.

The working group also asked the ministries to urgently planning to cutbusiness conditions if they had not done so, and publicise the conditions thathave been cut. Ministries were also asked to answer questions and requests fromenterprises and associations about difficulties and problems with specificcases.

At the meeting, ministries reported specifically on the number of conditions,simplified procedures, reductions, assessment of the quality of simplificationand removals through the number of working days and the amount of money savedfor businesses.

More results from the ministries will be fully reported at the coming Governmentmeeting this August. - VNA