Prime Minister: 'Bad and incompetent officials will hinder development'

Prime Minister: "If there are good reforms, good administration, good laws, but bad officials, without qualities, without capacity, it will hinder development."

On April 25, in Hanoi, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired the first meeting of the Government Standing Committee, discussing solutions to remove obstacles in the Enterprise Law and Investment Law. This is an issue that people and businesses are very interested in, because it is related to the investment and business environment.

Speaking at the meeting, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc requested that obstacles must be removed to create favorable conditions for businesses to invest and do business. All ministries must speed up the issuance of guiding decrees according to a shortened process so that from July 1 when the Law takes effect, there must be a Decree, leaving no legal gaps.

The Prime Minister requested to focus on resolving the concerns of businesses that the press has raised.

Analyzing the difficulties in implementing the Enterprise Law and Investment Law after 10 months, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said that the Enterprise Law mainly has technical and professional problems and the attitude and working methods of civil servants and relevant agencies.

However, there are many arising problems and difficulties with the Investment Law. There are three specific groups of problems mentioned.

Firstly, there are currently differences, incompatibilities, and inconsistencies between the provisions of the Investment Law, Decree 118/2015 of the Government and other relevant laws and legal documents in implementing investment procedures; secondly, there are difficulties in collecting, reviewing, and reforming regulations on investment and business conditions as required by the Investment Law; thirdly, there are problems and difficulties arising in implementing procedures and operations for approving investment policies, registering investment projects, and registering enterprises. These types of problems prolong time, create additional requirements for documents and papers, and even create unnecessary administrative procedures for investors and enterprises.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, ministries and branches have not yet collected and publicly announced regulations on investment and business conditions on the National Information Portal in accordance with the provisions of the Investment Law. In addition, the drafting of relevant Decrees on investment and business conditions to replace circulars and decisions of ministries that will expire from July 1, 2016 is still slow. This may lead to the fact that from July 1, when a series of laws come into effect, there will be no Decree guiding business conditions.

In addition, the Ministries have not yet issued investment and business conditions for 15/16 conditional investment and business sectors. According to the leaders of the Ministries participating in the meeting, there is still little time left to complete the guiding Decrees. However, if they are not developed and issued soon, legal loopholes will arise, causing difficulties for businesses and people.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired the meeting

After listening to the opinions of the ministries, branches and Deputy Prime Ministers, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc concluded that the spirit of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Ministers is high political determination to implement the Investment Law and the Enterprise Law, leaving no legal gaps. The Prime Minister requested the ministries to immediately get to work to meet the deadline.

Specifically, the Prime Minister requested the spirit of reform and innovation, creating all conditions for production and business, liberating production capacity, supporting the protection of business rights, publicizing business conditions; not violating the law and not issuing sub-licenses, especially when implementing the Investment Law. In addition, the Prime Minister also directed the Ministries, in the process of implementing these two laws, to be associated with the implementation of Resolution 19, which is to create the best investment and business environment for people and businesses.

The Prime Minister said that Ministries need to realize that if they see businesses queuing too long at their Ministry, that is not the spirit of this Law.

The Prime Minister requested to strengthen the role of the Working Group supervising the implementation of the Investment Law and the Enterprise Law to inspect, detect problems and promptly resolve them. In addition, a very important thing that the Prime Minister emphasized is that the civil service must serve the people, serve businesses, and must strictly implement the provisions of the Law so that the Law can come into life.

“If there are good reforms, good administration, good laws, but bad officials, without qualities, without capacity, it will hinder development,” said the Prime Minister.

In that spirit, the Prime Minister affirmed that if there is high political determination, the two Laws on Investment and Enterprises will come into effect at the right time without leaving any legal gaps. In order to quickly issue the necessary Decrees, the Prime Minister directed and agreed to issue the Decrees following the shortened process according to Article 151 of the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents 2015.

When building guiding decrees, the Prime Minister noted that the Ministries must remove obstacles but must be very aware of the procedural process, so that it is shorter and not as large as it is now.

The Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Planning and Investment to preside over the implementation of the Decree amending many Decrees. With business conditions issued by specialized ministries, they must be gathered at the Ministry of Planning and Investment to issue a common Decree. To speed up the progress, the Prime Minister requested the Government Office to also participate in presiding over and urging the implementation.

The Prime Minister requested that the deadline be May 30, the relevant Ministries must complete their tasks, in order to issue the Decree on July 1. Regarding the upgrade from Circular to Decree, the Ministries must do it on time, following the shortened issuance process, to uniformly implement it nationwide, including from July 1.

Regarding the fact that some laws are still entangled or inconsistent, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Justice, the Government Office and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to review them and submit them to the Government in the coming time./.

According to VOV