As mentioned, in recent times, many multinational technology corporations have chosen Nghe An to explore opportunities and decide to invest. In the context of the trend of shifting foreign investment capital into Vietnam, if considering the conditions of traffic infrastructure, trade and service infrastructure, etc., Nghe An does not have many advantages compared to the northern provinces, such as: Hanoi, Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, Bac Ninh, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, etc., or the southern provinces such as: Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, etc. So what is the reason for Nghe An's success in attracting FDI in recent times?
First of all, it is from the province's very high political determination in attracting investment. The Resolution of the 19th Provincial Party Congress identified one of the three development breakthroughs of the province for the 2020-2025 term as "Strongly improving the investment and business environment associated with administrative reform, enhancing the application of information technology in management and operation".
The province has identified building a creative and serving government; taking the trust and satisfaction of businesses as the core goal to promote economic development. The Provincial Party Committee has issued Resolution No. 05 on promoting administrative reform and Resolution No. 09 on digital transformation; on January 24, 2022, Nghe An province issued a decision approving the Project "Improving the investment and business environment, enhancing the efficiency of investment attraction in the period 2021-2025". The goal is to overcome the shortcomings and limitations of the past; aiming to create a more favorable, open and attractive investment and business environment to promote and improve the efficiency of investment attraction, creating a driving force for rapid and sustainable socio-economic development.
In particular, Nghe An province has also established a Steering Committee for administrative reform headed by Provincial Party Secretary Thai Thanh Quy (currently Nghe An is the only locality in the country with a Provincial Party Secretary as Head of the Steering Committee for administrative reform).
In order to unify the awareness, viewpoints, and aspirations of the cadres and party members and convey the political will and determination of the Provincial Party Committee, on May 11, 2023, the Standing Committee of the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee organized a Dialogue Conference between the Provincial Party Committee and department-level leaders and experts in the Provincial Agencies Bloc. The conference was attended by more than 800 delegates who were department-level leaders and experts at the provincial bridge point, and more than 5,000 cadres and party members of the Provincial Agencies Bloc at 33 online bridges at the grassroots level.
At this conference, comrades in the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee affirmed: Provincial leaders always listen, share, and objectively evaluate qualities and capacities, including any mistakes, but for the common goal of handling and resolving them appropriately and effectively. There will be transfers from leaders to specialists in places where there are stagnant, sluggish, corrupt, troublesome matters, with feedback and public opinion, after review and verification, it is correct. The Provincial Party Secretary affirmed: The province strictly handles officials who commit violations, but there will be solutions to encourage and care for dynamic, creative, and responsible officials so that administrative reform work can change for the better, contributing to promoting the development of the province.
At the meetings of the Steering Committee for Administrative Reform of Nghe An province, the issues that are still of public concern and need to be rectified have also been frankly pointed out. As at the second meeting (July 27, 2023), it was mentioned that some officials of the specialized departments of the Department of Construction and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment have been reported by public opinion to have caused trouble and harassment in the performance of their duties. On that basis, the Steering Committee for Administrative Reform of the province requires heads of agencies and units to promote the implementation of exemplary responsibilities, strengthen monitoring, reminding, and rectifying the team of officials, civil servants, public employees, and workers under their management in the performance of duties, public ethics, and administrative reform; overcome the situation of avoidance, shirking, and fear of responsibility; resolutely replace and transfer cases of stagnation, weakness, violations of public ethics, or negative public opinion in the performance of public duties. It is known that afterwards, at these units, there were transfers of work for a number of leadership positions in specialized departments.
Along with institutional reform, administrative procedure reform is considered by the province as one of the prerequisites to improve the investment and business environment, attract investment, prevent and combat corruption and negativity. The Provincial People's Committee has issued many documents and plans to review and simplify administrative procedures, build e-government and digital government. Typically, on March 6, 2022, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee issued Decision No. 580/QD-UBND to establish an interdisciplinary working group to promote administrative procedure reform, improve the investment and business environment and cooperate with foreign countries. Every month, the working group synthesizes and compiles statistics on the settlement of administrative procedures by departments, branches and sectors related to investment and business to urge and remove difficulties and obstacles in the process of settling administrative procedures for investors.
On March 23, 2023, the People's Committee of Nghe An province issued Plan No. 191/KH-UBND on reviewing and simplifying administrative procedures in the province in 2023, with a total of 74 administrative procedures to be reviewed and simplified. At the same time, it directed departments, branches, sectors, and People's Committees of districts, cities, and towns to develop, promulgate, and implement the Plan in agencies and units.
To date, 100% of administrative procedures under the authority of settlement have been made public on the National Public Service Portal and the Administrative Procedures Information System of Nghe An province. The province continues to review, reduce and simplify at least 20% of internal administrative procedures according to the roadmap. The rate of settlement of administrative procedure records at 3 levels (province, district, commune) before and on time is high (97.61%).
Director of the Department of Home Affairs Nguyen Viet Hung assessed: The administrative reform work of the province has recently had quite positive movements, reflected through the results of ranking provincial competitiveness indexes, administrative reform indexes; the investment attraction environment of the province is more open, attractive, and effective; the level of satisfaction and trust of people and businesses towards state administrative agencies has increased. In particular, the Steering Committee for Administrative Reform of the province headed by the Provincial Party Secretary has come into operation, creating a spread and movement in the thinking, awareness and action of cadres, civil servants and public employees throughout the province. The coordination between departments, branches and localities is better, the situation of pushing and avoiding has decreased a lot, localities have exchanged and coordinated to remove bottlenecks and difficulties towards the goal of serving people and businesses better.
With the view of creating the most favorable conditions for businesses and investors to develop, Nghe An has maintained a regular dialogue mechanism between provincial leaders, departments, branches and sectors with investors to promptly handle difficulties and problems in the process of implementing investment projects in the area.
Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Duc Trung has repeatedly shared that the province and its departments and branches have many "rights", but investors only have one "right", which is the right to invest or not to invest. And for investors to feel secure in investing in the province, the most important issue is the attitude of authorities at all levels and departments and branches. Departments and branches have promoted administrative procedure reform in the spirit of "fast - correct - effective", identifying businesses and investors as the center and service partners.
This clearly shows that the time to handle administrative procedures of key projects has been reduced by 2/3 by departments and branches according to regulations, many projects received Investment Registration Certificates after only 5 days of submitting documents. That change once again affirms the determination and efforts of Nghe An province in strongly improving the investment and business environment, in line with the motto that the province has determined: "The Party Committee and the government always accompany businesses". Based on the viewpoint that Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Duc Trung has repeatedly emphasized: "The difficulties and obstacles of businesses are also the difficulties and obstacles of the province", departments, branches, and localities have proactively listened, grasped, reviewed the difficulties and obstacles of businesses and actively resolved them, not "explaining and justifying" as before.
The leader of Hoang Thinh Dat Joint Stock Company said: The province, departments, branches, and localities have accompanied the infrastructure investor from the investment survey stage, implementing procedures for investment approval, site clearance, etc. In addition, the company also received support from the leaders of the province, departments, branches, and Hoang Mai town regarding the investment in synchronous infrastructure outside the fence of the industrial park project such as roads, 110kV transformer stations, etc. to ensure the production environment and energy supply for investors in the industrial park, creating favorable conditions for promoting investment attraction in the company's industrial park projects in the province.
In addition to the efforts from the provincial level, districts, cities and towns have also had many administrative reform solutions in attracting investment. Chairman of Nghi Loc District People's Committee Nguyen Tien Dung affirmed: "As a key investment attraction area of the province, we have made very thorough preparations. The district has soon developed a land use plan for the period 2021-2030, we adhere to the plan to provide information to investors, creating conditions for investors to access information about land in a democratic and transparent manner. At the same time, the district directs the entire political system to join in the work of site clearance to attract and soon put investment projects into operation".
The spirit of the provincial leaders' direction has been thoroughly grasped and created profound and positive changes in departments, branches and localities. Vice Chairman of Hoang Mai Town People's Committee Pham Van Hao emphasized: If the town wants to develop, it must develop industry. Therefore, in recent times, the town has focused on mobilizing the entire political system to work on site clearance in industrial parks; friendly relations with investors, sending officials to accompany investors in resolving administrative procedures and removing difficulties and obstacles, ensuring security and order in the area to create confidence for investors.
In addition to efforts to improve the PCI, PAPI, and PAR INDEX, Nghe An has issued a set of indicators to assess the quality of management capacity of departments, branches, and localities in the province (DDCI). Every year, the DDCI results of departments, branches, and localities are evaluated and announced. The DDCI results are the basis for departments, branches, branches, and localities to realistically assess their management, administration, and governance capacity. Thereby, raising the spirit and responsibility in improving the indicators so that the province's business environment is increasingly better. True to the spirit of Resolution No. 39 of the Politburo: Nghe An must create a breakthrough in administrative reform, improve the investment and business environment, and strive to improve the provincial competitiveness indexes PCI, PAR Index, and PAPI to the top group of the country.
