Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Vu Tien Loc
However, there are still many shortcomings. Loc suggested putting more efforts in simplifying administrative procedures for businesses.
According to VCCI, 16% of the surveyed firms said that still have to wait to a whole month to have enough papers to open businesses. This problem is actually getting worse in the past five years. Besides the license for the establishment of the company, the firms have met various difficulties while trying to complete other procedures.
34% said they had difficulties while trying to earn the certificate of eligibility for conditional businesses, 30% had troubles with fire safety certification and 29% had troubles with technical regulation procedures and other certification. 30% of red tape issues were found in land-related procedures, 28% in tax, 24% in business registration and 22% in fire safety.
For FDI firms, 28% of the problems are found in import-export procedures, 26% in social insurance, 25% in tax and 24% in business registration.
Loc also suggested that the government should have a better method to inform new information and trade agreements to the businesses. According to the 2018 Provincial Competitiveness Index report, over 70% of Vietnamese firms know nothing about the EVFTA, 63% didn't know about the ASEAN economic community.
"It's hard to grab the opportunities that global integration brings if local firms lack the information about important co-operation agreements early enough. Meanwhile, they have a harder time to compete with foreign firms in the domestic market," Loc said.
The European Council announced on June 25 that it has approved the EVFTA and the EVIPA, and assigned the EU to sign the deals with Vietnam on June 30 in Hanoi. Once the EVFTA takes effect, over 99% of tariff on goods from both sides will be lifted. The EVFTA is expected to be approved by the European Parliament later this year or early 2020.
