Vietnam is increasingly transparent about its budget.
According to the results of the 2021 Global Open Budget Survey recently announced by the International Budget Partnership (IBP), Vietnam's budget transparency score continues to improve compared to previous assessments, raising Vietnam's ranking to 68/120 countries, up 9 places compared to 2019 and up 23 places compared to 2017.
In particular, the component scores for the three pillars have made many strides, reaching 44/100 points for the Budget Transparency pillar, 17/100 points for the Public Participation pillar, 80/100 points for the Budget Supervision pillar, all pillars increased by 6 points compared to 2019.
The Open Budget Survey is an initiative to promote budget transparency, conducted by IBP in collaboration with independent social organizations (in Vietnam, the Center for Development and Integration - CDI), in more than 100 countries around the world, with an assessment cycle every 2 years since 2006. The Ministry of Finance has participated in the OBS assessment since 2015 and has so far participated in 4 surveys in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021. After each survey, Vietnam's OBS score has improved significantly.
The highlight of Vietnam's OBS2021 results is the improvement in the score of the Public Participation pillar, reaching 17/100, higher than the global average of 14/100, an increase of 6 points compared to 2019. To achieve this result, the Ministry of Finance implemented a mechanism to directly collect opinions from the people through seminars organized by the Center for Development and Integration (CDI) on the draft budget estimate, thereby providing information as well as receiving valuable comments from scientists, organizations and individuals to complete the state budget estimate to be submitted to the National Assembly for decision.
The OBS2021 ranking results show Vietnam's efforts in enhancing budget transparency. In addition to continuing to apply the provisions of the 2015 State Budget Law in the direction of expanding the scope, subjects, content and form of disclosure, Vietnam has approached and implemented good international practices, such as publishing 3-year financial plan data - State budget, developing Citizen Budget Reports with simple, easy-to-understand language, and at the same time implementing various forms of information dissemination to the people, creating favorable conditions for people to easily grasp information, thereby increasing interest and active participation in the process of building and monitoring the budget.
Notably, since 2020, the Ministry of Finance has operated the State Budget Public Portal at https://ckns.mof.gov.vn to provide timely and complete information and data on the state budget and support convenient exploitation and search in different information directions; at the same time, it is ready to receive comments and contributions from organizations and individuals in the process of building the state budget estimate.
The Ministry of Finance said that in the coming time, it will continue to effectively publicize the State Budget and guide, inspect, and supervise localities and ministries/sectors to strictly implement the public disclosure according to the provisions of the State Budget Law. In order to create maximum conditions for people to access and exploit State Budget information, the State Budget Publicity Portal will be upgraded and completed in the direction of arranging and organizing data scientifically, operating and exploiting through electronic means.
The Ministry of Finance also continuously cooperates with international organizations and civil society organizations in research activities, amending and supplementing legal regulations on budget transparency, as well as sharing, exchanging information and promoting propaganda among all classes of people to raise awareness and attract people's attention.
