The procedures took 61.5 hours to complete, up three times the previous year; and most businesses had to hire other companies to handle all their environmental procedures, according to the Administrative Procedures Compliance Cost Index 2020 report released Wednesday by the government.

The report, which has been released annually since 2018, assesses how the country’s administrative process has changed by studying the time and money it takes to complete nine different sets of procedures.

Among the eight remaining groups, five saw average costs increase, with that of construction rising 29 percent to VND25.3 million, and that of investment rising 38 percent to VND9.1 million.

Taxation procedures showed the biggest improvement with costs falling 66 percent to VND0.3 million. A major contributing factor to the improvement was the increasing use of technology, the report said.

By the end of last year, nearly 100 percent of businesses were filing and paying their taxes online. The average time spent on completing tax procedures fell 19 percent year-on-year to 3.8 hours.

Minister and head of the Government Office, Mai Tien Dung, said Wednesday that government bodies have made much progress in reducing administrative procedures, but there was still much room for improvement.

High non-official costs create "an unhealthy business environment, which causes concerns for foreign businesses investing in Vietnam," he said.