Hanoi’s breakthroughs in administrative reforms to attract investment

Hanoi has made breakthroughs in administrative reforms in the last five months

This was the message delivered by Hanoi officials at a recent conference on investment attraction.

Hanoi topped other localities as the most attractive destination for foreign investors in the first five months of this year. 

As of the end of May, Hanoi had attracted US$1.6 billion in registered capital, 3 times the same period last year and 50% more than all of last year.

The number of projects granted investment licenses and certificates of investment registration is 3 times last year’s total and total capital has risen 240%.

Hanoi has made an effort to improve its business environment and had good results. Hanoi now ranks 24th out of 63 provinces and cities in improved business and investment climate. 

It is pushing administrative reforms to remove difficulties for investors, particularly in tariffs, social insurance, land acquisition, and land clearance.

Nguyen Thi Nguyet Huong, President of PNG Holdings Vietnam, said strong commitments to improving the investment environment will create breakthroughs for Hanoi and its enterprises.

“I hope the time needed for administrative procedures will be halved. The reduction would help businesses cut investment costs and attract new investment,” Huong said.

From now until 2020, Hanoi has set a target of becoming a leader in investment attraction. 

To achieve this goal, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said, “Hanoi will focus on administrative reform comprehensively and in all fields including investment licensing. We’ve outlined regulations and processes for investment licensing aimed at reducing the time and amount of paperwork required."

"The municipal authorities will continue restructuring the apparatus of its departments and sectors. We will also improve the operations of the entire administrative system towards a single door, trans-sector administrative mechanism," he added.

In June, Hanoi plans to establish a fund to support start-up businesses, and promulgate a mechanism to encourage individual household businesses to register pursuant to the corporate law. It aims to have 200,000 new enterprises by 2020. 

Hanoi will shorten the time needed to register a business from  three working days to two. It will cut by 40% the time needed to complete administrative procedures relating to investment.

Chairman Chung promised that Hanoi will try to help all its enterprises complete online tax procedures, and said that Hanoi will cut by at least 20% of administrative procedures for land clearance and retrieval.

Seventy investors have already registered to invest in 52 public-private partnership projects introduced at the conference. Many of them involve building or upgrading infrastructure facilities, especially for transportation, water drainage, and telecommunications.