REPORT ON

Results of implementation of Resolution 35 of the Government in 2018

Resolution No. 35 / NQ-CP dated May 16, 2016 of the Government on supporting and developing businesses by 2020 (the Resolution 35), the Directive 26 / CT-TTg dated June 6, 2017 of the Government’s Prime Minister on effective continuing implementation of the Resolution 35 / NQ-CP dated May 16, 2016 in the spirit of Government accompanying businesses (the Directive 26) and the Directive No. 07 / CT-TTg of the Government’s Prime Minister: Continuously promotiondeployment and effective implementation of the Resolution No. 35 / NQ-CP dated May 16, 2016 on support and development of businesses by 2020 and the Directive No. 26 / CT-TTg dated June 6, 2017 of the Government’s Prime Minister on continuously effective implementation of the  Resolution No. 35 / NQ-CP dated May 16, 2016 in the spirit of the Government accompanying businesses in 2018 (the Directive 07) that has assigned to the VCCI some groups of tasks. The VCCI would like to report results of the implementation of the above Resolution and Directive in 2018 as follows:

1. Summary of difficulties, problems and recommendations of businesses:

1.1. Gathering and resolving recommendations:

From January 1, 2018 to November 30, 2018, the VCCI directly gathered and monitored from information channels 701 recommendations of businesses and business associations across the country received by the Government’s Office andtheVCCI. Through monitoring of the VCCI, until the end of November 30, 2018, ministries, branches and localities responded 546 recommendations (reaching 77.89%) and 155 recommendations of businesses and business associations were not yet responded by ministries, branches and localities (22.11%). These recommendations were the responsibility response of the ministries, branches and some localities across the country such as: The Ministries of Transport; Justice; Finance; Natural Resources and Environment; Agriculture and Rural Development, Science and technology; the State Bank of Vietnam; the Ministries of Construction; Industry and Trade; Medical; Planning and Investment; NationalDefense; Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs; Interior and Vietnam Social Securityas well as City People's Committees of Hanoi; Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh and Hai Phong Cities, Phu Tho; Tuyen Quang; Bac Kan; Kien Giang; Vinh Phuc; Hai Duong; Dong Nai; Lang Son; Bac Ninh; Ca Mau; Binh Thuan and Long AnProvinces (Details of unanswered recommendationsare presented in the Appendix attached to the report)

Through monitoring by the VCCI, the resolution of recommendations of businesses, business associations of ministries, branches and localities as of the end of November 2018 was timely and more complete than that of 2017 and 2016. Ministries and agencies responded to recommendations relatively on time and adequate, including: the Ministries of Planning and Investment, Finance, Transport, Construction; Agriculture and Rural Development. Even so, the numbers of recommendations that were not yet responded or unsatisfactory responses by the Ministries of Finance and Planning and Investment were still quite many. The main reasonswere that these two ministries received a large amount of recommendations, many complicated and prolonged cases that related to the inadequate contents of legal documents neededto consider and amend. In general, the People's Committees of the provinces and cities directly under the Central Government responded to recommendations slowly due to recommendations of businesses being transferred to many levels. The process was usually handed over to one or more departments by the provincial People's Committee, and then reported to the People's Committee to answer businesses. In addition, some ministries such as: Health; Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs; Natural Resources and Environment and Public Security responded to many recommendations that were not on time.

In addition, in 2018, VCCI also conducted surveys and getting comments of evaluation on quality in response to recommendations of ministries and localities of 1007 businesses and business associations which had recommendations to send ministries,branches and localities in 2017 and 2018. The survey results showed:

- Regarding responses tobusinesses' recommendations of ministries and branches at the central level: 73.22% responded very satisfied and satisfied, 26.78% responded unsatisfied.

- Regarding answering business proposals of provincial People's Committees: 37.5% was respondedsatisfied, 3.57% responded very satisfied, 35.72% responded unsatisfied and 23.21% did not evaluate due to no recommendations under the jurisdiction of provincial People's Committees.

- Some reasons that businesses were not satisfied with resolving recommendations of authorities included: Responses were too general, explanations without resolutions; Local authorities resolvednot objectively until having direction of the Government to set forth appropriatelysettlement; some recommendations needed to amend the provisions of the law to resolve, but the amendment proceeded slowly; management agencies only sent direction documents without checking the settlement of lower authorities; many responses criticized the law, letbusinesses study by themselves. Particularly, there werebusinesses said that the responseswere not correct to contents of the recommendations, the official letterswere often around and did not resolve, mainly transferred to whererecommendations were arisen.

The survey results to businessesshowed that businesses assessed the resolution of recommendations of local authorities not as high as the ministries and branches at the central level. These resultswere also consistent with the situation that provincial People's Committees often responded to businesses' recommendations quite slow as mentioned above. In addition, the monitoring of VCCI has a number of reasons such as: many recommendations of businesseswere land-related cases with the content of: extension of land lease contract, licensing or project revocation, identification valuation of land rent ... These cases were for many years but were not finalized or resolved by localities, but businesses were not satisfied and continued petitioning to the central level.

1.2. Recommended contents:

Most businesses recommended and proposedresponses on specific issues arising in the process of business production, implementation of investment projects, etc. Many questions, recommendations with individuals’ aptitude and not represented for businesses and organizations. There were not many recommendations of business associations, recommendations on policy issues, major issues of sectors and regions and related to the competitiveness of businesses. The main contents of the recommendations included the following issues:

- Regarding administrative reform,andtaking advantages forbusinesses: Focused on improving tax procedures, customs, access to land, inspection, examination and environment; spirit, service attitude of civil servants who worked in the field; proposed state agencies to fully comply with the provisions of law during the process of performing public duties. The outstanding content in the recommendations was the specialized inspection of ministries and branches. While the administrative procedures of the Customs sector have been significantly improved, the specialized inspection of ministries and branches haves been slow to be improved, many specialized tests were unnecessary or prolonged, causing waste of time and money for businesses. In order to quickly simplify specialized inspection procedures, eliminating unnecessary inspection procedures that needed to have drastic direction and regularly inspectedas well as urged the Government’s Prime Minister and the Government for Ministries to ensure specialized inspection cut down and not replaced by new procedures. Some specific recommendations included:

+ Community proposed ministries and agencies to provide specific guidance and clarification on the implementation of legal provisions in areas such as: bidding (most of the monthly recommendations submitted to the Ministry of Planning and Investment were proposed legal guidance on bidding showed that the bidding law was not really easy and convenient for organizations, individuals and businesses to apply in practice); transportation (prominently was the granting of a business license for transporting internal or transport businesses without direct collection, companies with 100% foreign investment and management of technology taxi); announcement of technical regulation and conformity; labor (granting work permits for foreigners; developing salary scales and tables in enterprises; signing labor contracts with the elderly ...); social insurance (maternity, job severance; welfare-reward fund in enterprises after equalization, settling the payment of the same insurance regime; determining the time when pregnant women were entitled to enjoy the regime; dealing with occupational accidents related to sports ...); policy of tax; investment preferential policies; solve business problems after equalization ...

+ Many businesses had problems when implementing tax and customs administrative procedures such as issuing and using electronic invoices; allowingissuance of retail invoices; VAT refund; taxable form when transferring income from abroad; export value-added invoices for receiving funds; declaring and deducting value added tax; customs procedures for goods in transit at the first entry border gate; Actual inspection of customs goods...

+ Businesses in the tourism sector proposed to improve visa-free policies along with electronic visas and visa at the border gate and did not replace visa exemption policies with other forms.

+Businesses had many recommendations on investment, management and operation of apartments such as: selecting investors for construction projects of commercial houses; apartment warranty; activities of the management board of apartment buildings; fire protection for apartments; designing the common ownership section, owning the apartment's ownership as well as the order and procedures of competent authorities for these areas...

+ Many business associations in the field of food processing (the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors, the Vietnam Dairy Association, the Transparency Food Association, the Ho Chi Minh City Food Association, the Phu Quoc Fish Sauce Association, the American Trade Association in Vietnam, the European Business Association in Vietnam) and businesses in this field proposed problems in implementing the Circular No. 12/2017 / TT-BKHCN of the Ministry of Science and Technology such as: the businesses' right to complain about the results of goods quality testing; The request for re-testing of goods quality at the testing establishments thatwere designated for cases of unsatisfactory goods testing results for the first time ....

+ The Japan Business Association in Vietnam had many recommendations on the contents of the drafted Decree replacing the Decree No. 55/2013 / ND-CP detailing the implementation of Clause 3, Article 54 of the Labor Codeon the licensing of sublease labor activities such as: Can foreign investors be allowed to provide labor outsourcing services? If they are allowed to do business, the conditions of foreign investors must be satisfied when they provide services for labor sublease; the term of labor sublease increased 24 months instead of 12 months; supplement the list of occupations allowed to sublease labor...

+ The Korea Industry and Trade Association proposed the Ministry of Finance - the General Department of Customs to consider clearly stating the tax exemption basis for on-spot export in the Decree No. 08/2015 / ND-CP; the Circular No. 38/2015 / TT-BTC and reviewed the legal explanation with instructions for retrospective collection of tax from September 1, 2016.

+ The draft Decree replacedthe Decree No. 86/2014 / ND-CP dated September 10, 2014 of the Government on conditions for transportation by cars despite being at the evaluation stage of the Ministry of Justice. continued receiving many recommendations of business associations (Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh Cities Taxi Associations) and businesses on the contents: signing contracts between transport businesses and trading businesses on bus station; the delivery and return of passengers at the head office, branches and representative offices of transport businesses; state management for cars with electronic contracts with 9 seats or less; the businesses must provide transport contracts for the Department of Transportation; Transport business vehicles had their own color numbers to facilitate identification and management ...

+ Despite being responded by the General Department of Customs, the businesses imported automobiles and construction machines continued to propose that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport applied new HS codes for goods "Cranes tire wheel” was not reasonable. The introduction of new HS codes made businesses faced to the possibility of tax arrears from 2013 to date, which will push businesses to difficult situations or even bankruptcy.

+ Ban Phuc Nikel Mining Company continued to complain and protest against the Decision No. 1782 / QD-HQHN dated November 26, 2018 on the determination of tax on export and import goods of the company. This is a case that has lasted for 2 years and the company has repeatedly recommended and complained by the General Department of Customs and Hanoi Customs Department. However, with the latest settlement results from the Hanoi Department of Customs was the Decision of fixing collection No. 1782 / QD-HQHN dated November 26, 2018, the company still complain and send a petition to have helpsfrom many people, departments and agencies.

+ About creating a favorable environment for businesses, supporting innovative businesses: It was necessary to continue conducting regular review and assessment of conditional business lines to determine the exact sectors business conditions thatwere suitable with the objectives specified in Clause 1, Article 7 of the Investment Law2014, while ensuring the State's management and realizing business freedom of businesses. This was also consistent with the spirit of the provisions of the Investment Law 2014 and the Decree 118/2015 / ND-CP. Focused on promoting the effectiveness of small and medium businesses development support funds; the National Science and Technology Development Fund; the National technology innovation fund, ...;

- Regarding business rights and equal rights to access business resources and opportunities of businesses: Recommendations related to the proposal of serious implementation of consultations of affected subjects and experts in the process of developing and implementing laws and policies; improved quality and participation of legal officials of ministries and sectors in the law development; minimized and eliminated conflicts as well as overlaps between legal regulations.

+ The Korean Agency for Trade and Investment Promotion in the center of Southeast Asia and Oceania recommended to the Government on the need to develop a legal basis for businesses to trade in petroleum. Automatically,this will help businesses to open petroleum business locations in mountainous areas, rural areas ... where there is not great demand because it can reduce construction costs and maximize operation.

+ Although the Ministry of Construction responded many times, many businesseshas still continued reflecting difficulties of businesses when implementing the Project on "Roadmap to using white asbestos for termination of the production of AC roof sheets from 2023 ".

- On reducing business costs for businesses: Focused on ensuring appropriate interest rates; reduced the contribution levels of employers; reduced land rent, reduced fee rates in some BOT projects, some other fees and charges. In addition, strong and synchronous focus was needed to reduce logistics costs which account for a very high proportion of the business costs of businesses (20% of GDP as reported by the World Bank), which was mainly caused by complicated customs clearance (customs and specialized inspection); industrial zones and clusters were not well connected with transport infrastructure planning; infrastructure of warehousing services were lack and weak ... Some specific contents included:

+ Although the Ministry of Construction responded many times, + Transportation costs were still a relatively big congestion point for businesses in many localities. Although provinces had plans to improve transport infrastructure, in fact, this activity did not meet the needs of businesses. Most of the transport infrastructure projects of the provinces were slow, the construction time was too long, causing the slow speed of transportation, which increased the transportation costs of businesses.

+ The Circular No. 44/2017 / TT / BTC dated May 12, 2017 of the Ministry of Finance continued receiving many recommendations of businesses and business associations suggesting amendments to the contents: Calculation price bracket of natural resources tax for the group, the type of resource with the same physicochemical properties; land and sand prices for ground leveling; construction sand prices; original stone (stone price after blasting) ... This showed that the Circular has got many regulations to consider and modify to be more suitable for the operation of businesses.

- Protected legitimate rights and interests of businesses: Recommendations showed that the resolution of business and commercial disputes, settlement of business bankruptcy were still slow and prolonged; civil judgment execution was not effective and prolonged which caused damages to businesses.

Currently, many businesses has assessed that the speed of judicial reform is slower than the speed of administrative reform. The reform in the scope of the Court's management does not take many steps, but the judgment execution period is not focused.

Many businesses proposed functional agencies to take timely action to protect the ownership of inventions, innovations and industrial designs, to avoid violations in prolonged periods thatcaused great damages to businesses.

2. Summarizing the implementation of commitments to People's Committees of provinces and cities on the business environment:

By monitoring the implementation of VCCI's commitments and reports of People's Committees of provinces and cities, the business community recognized improvements in business investment environment as well as efforts to support businesses from the government from the central to local levels over the years. However, the reform space still had a lot and needed to have more efforts from the ministries and localities. Many reform measures were made by ministries and local authorities, but there seemed to be a long journey to have a direct impact on businesses. The distance from support policies to beneficiaries was still relatively far.

2.1. Results:

- Implementation of the Resolution 35 / NQ-CP created positive changes in ideology and awareness of cadres and civil servants of local administrations at all levels, especially on the manner, style and attitude of submission service. Business development and investment attraction paid attention by localities. Business support activities such as training, trade promotion, credit guarantees, and business incubators ... were deployed and received positive response from the business community.

Under the drastic direction of the Government’s Prime Minister and the Government, cutting administrative procedures, business barriers, cutting 50% of specialized inspection of ministries, branches and localities has become a bright spot of the implementation of Resolution 35 on administrative procedure reform in 2018.

- Implemented the Resolution 35 / NQ-CP, the Directive 26 / CT-TTg, the Directive 07 / CT-TTg, People's Committees of provinces and cities under central authority which developed many action programs with the main tasks : Continued promoting administrative reform, focused on reforming administrative procedures towards simplifying records and procedures, shortening the time for handling work, reduced the number of travel and saved costs for the investors; focused on improving institutions, improved the quality of infrastructure and renovation of technology, credit access, ensured order security and solutions to improve competitiveness and innovation capacity; strengthened the application of information technology in the activities of state administrative agencies, publicity, transparency of information for businesses and e-government implementation; Strengthened management, improved the responsibilities of cadres, civil servants and officials in the implementation of work.

- The administrative procedure reform of many localities achieved good results, some administrative procedures exceeded the targets set by the Resolution 19 / NQ-CP and committed to signwith VCCI as: time for setting up businesses: Most provinces were 2 days (1 day less than Commitments); many provinces had only one day to set up businesses such as Bac Lieu and An Giang Provinces ... The provinces were best evaluated for improving business registration indexes including Tra Vinh, Bac Lieu, Da Nang, An Giang, Binh. Dinh, Long An, Phu Yen, Quang Ninh and Tay Ninh Provinces ... The implementation of administrative procedures in the fields of land, construction, tax, insurance, ownership, electricity, water ... were also strengthened by provinces. The application of information technology was shortened the time much more than before the Resolution 35.

- Model of public administrative center was organized by many provinces / cities to minimize travel time and troubles for people and businesses. There were provinces such as Quang Ninh and Quang Ngai Provinces... built public administrative centers to district level. In addition, all localities implemented the one-door and one-stop-shop mechanism in handling administrative procedures for people and businesses.

- Provinces / cities actively implemented electronic tax declaration and payment (most of them were from 96-100%).

Business dialogue and businesses meeting activities (this is an important indicator assigned in the Resolution 35) that was regularly implemented in provinces and cities throughout the country. The organization of dialogues between different levels of government and businesseswas hold by most localities in a variety of rational and effective forms. Many localities were very creative in organizing dialogues with businesses such as: organizing dialogues of the type of businesses (small businesses, FDI enterprises in each country), and dialogues with businessesweekly (Vinh Phuc Province) and monthly (Hai Phong City), television dialogues (Dak Lak Province) ... Especially the model of "Entrepreneur Coffee" was organized by many provinces to create a friendly and openly atmosphere between the authorities and businesses in dialogue and timely solving difficulties and problems for businesses.

- According to reports of provinces and cities directly under the central government, most provinces developed a startup program, especially creative start-ups such as: Hanoi City issued a project to support start-up business to 2020 and developed a project to support creative start-up in the city; An Giang Province established a Youth Start-up Support Center to implement the Young Start-up Project in the period of 2016-2019; Dak Lak Province issued a Plan to support businesses to innovate and start businesses ....

2.2. Exists and limitations....

- The reduction of business conditions and specialized inspection achieved some results over the past time but still do not meet the requirements of businesses and investors. A part of cadres, civil servants and public servants working on solving administrative procedures for businesses and investors was still limited in capacity; troublesome and harassing situations still occurred, causing frustration for businesses. In the process of cutting, there were also many problems, especially in terms of what criteria needed to be removed and what needed to keep. There was a situation where each ministry used a different criterion to determine this issue. For example, there were ministries that abandon business conditions that required experience or qualifications of human resources and other ministries still maintained. Another example wasthat some ministries used criteria for compliance history of a type of goods to retain / remove in the list of specialized inspection goods, while others did not use this measure. Therefore, it was necessary to agree soon on the criteria for introducing industry access regulations to ensure consistency and convenience in the review process.

- The Resolution No. 35 has set a target of 1 million businesses operating effectively. However, in order to achieve this goal is not a small challenge. Currently, the Ministry of Planning and Investment also only publishes the number of active businesses. Most provinces and cities only dare to set targets for the number of registered establishment activities. Even in the big economic center as Hanoi City also aimed to have 400,000 businessesto be registered by 2020 (according to the report of Hanoi City until the end of 9 months of 2018, Hanoi City had 248,734 businessesregistered their operations). However, among businesses registered operating, how many businesses has operated effectively is the right target set by Resolution 35.

On the other hand, many localities in the areahas faced difficulties and embarrassment with the goal of rapidly increasing the number of enterprises operating in the area. Especially the provinces with geographical location and unfavorable conditions. In these provinces, the number of businesses operating is often small, sparsely populated and unfavorable factors to attract investment, and the level of civil servants has been weak so it has been still embarrassing to promote and support businesses to distribute development. In addition, the incentive mechanism for households and business households to transform into incomplete businesses; start up movement has been not really strong and sustainable.

- Localities have paid more attention to obtaining opinions of businesses to comment on legal documents under the jurisdiction of the localities, but they have not yet diversified forms of comments of enterprises. .

- Regarding the issue of businesses inspection and examination, there were still businesses reflect that the locality not yet implemented the inspection and examination requirements once a year as Resolution 35 proposed. In addition, according to the survey results of PCI in 2017, the rate of businesses was inspected 2 or more times per year was still up to 39.8%. This rate decreased in comparison to 48.2% in 2016. In the group of businesses that were inspected many times in 2017, 13% of businesses said there was overlap between the inspection teams. Thus, it can be seen, the direction of the Government on only inspecting businesses once a year (except for signs of clear violation) and not was duplicated by inspection, initially by many ministries and localities. However, 39.8% of businesses were inspected twice or more and 13% was still overlapped, indicating that the issue of inspector work reform needed to be further promoted.

- The implementation of information technology application at level 3, level 4 in handling administrative procedures in some business-related areas was still slow. The number of administrative procedures provided online at level 3 and 4 was not much. Moreover, although many localities provided public services at level 3 and 4, that allowedbusinesses to actively submit applications by electronic version and process them based on that electronic version. However, in fact, the proportion of people and businesses using these tools to do administrative procedures was still very low. There were businesses and many lawyers reflected the online filing status, but then they were unable to implement, so they had to go back and submit it directly. There were many "problems" listed such as (1) can not uploading files; (2) uploaded but there was no notice received or failed to issue a record number for retrieval; (3) there was a reception notice and a record number, but the lookup system did not work; (4) the system did not notify appointment time for processing records and did not resolve; (5) Even if you had an appointment, but the appointment was too late, the system would not answer whether the application was approved or not. In such cases, the businessescalled, but they were often answered that it was because of technical errors (but businesses themselves did not understand) and officers instructedbusinesses to submit paper copies.

- The capacity for resolving civil, business and commercial disputes related to businesses of the courts at all levels was still limited, the settlement was very slow and prolonged, which madebusinesses less choice to sue the court.On the other hand, ineffective civil judgment execution was also the reason that businesses had less choice of courts when there were disputes. The Court of bankruptcy settlement was still not favorable for businesses to go bankrupt, so the number of bankruptcy cases handed by the court were very low.

3. Organizing surveys, statistics, official synthesizing and informal costs for businesses, comparing with regional and international businesses and proposing solutions on reducing costs for businesses:

Implementedthe Resolution No. 35 / NQ-CP issued on May 16, 2016 on supporting and developing businesses by 2020, the Government directly assigned to the "Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry to organize the survey, statistics, synthesizing official and informal costs for businesses, compared with regional and international businesses and proposed solutions to reduce costs for businesses”. 2018 is the second continuous year that VCCI has implemented the project "Researching business costs for Vietnamese businesses comparing with businesses in the region and the world". Within the framework of implementation of the project in 2018, the VCCI implemented:

-Organizing seminars to exchange, discuss, get ideas from businesses, experts and managers with topics related to costs in the production and business process (both official and informal costs) such as: Costs of accessing the production site (land), costs of accessing business capital and costs of import and export activities, unofficial costs for implementing administrative procedures, tax and customs, inspection and examination...

- Organizing short-term training courses to help businesses to determine exactly the costs when implementing regulations on goods origin, goods labels, customs procedures, general and general online bidding in particular, selecting contractors, through setting forth solutions to minimize these costs;

- Researching the topics of business costs of businesses in a number of areas such as distribution, retail, electronics and agriculture; proposing solutions to reducing costs for businesses when recruiting and employing workers, accessing capital from commercial banks and international payment in the new trend related to export support.

- Conducting survey of 500 businesses (through questionnaires) and obtaining some key results such as:

+ First: Vietnamese businesseswere increasingly interested in cutting production and business costs (both formal and informal) in order to reduce production costs and improve competitiveness for products and business capacity. For official costs, labor costs were paid attention by many businesses (from average interested to very interested) to cut the most (over 90% of businesses), followed by tax costs (about 89% of businesses), input materials, capital ...; Meanwhile, nearly 80% of businesses were interested in cutting unofficial costs, to reduce the burden on businesses.

+ Second: when registering for establishment, businesses also generated unofficial costs (accounting for about 13% of fees and charges as prescribed). In addition, when carrying out other activities such as: registration for dissolution, registration of operation cessation, registration of conditional business branches, procedures for bankruptcy of businesses, besides official costs as prescribed then businesses were also incurred informal costs, even, there were informal cost activities that account for more than 20% of the fees and charges as prescribed. In addition to generating unofficial costs, businesses also had to spend a lot of time when doing these activities.

+ Third: Businesses that carried out activities such as applying for construction permits, access to land, access to capital, tax payment / tax settlement also generated unofficial costs for quite a long time. There were even activities where informal costs incurred be higher than official costs (such as activities applying for construction permits and access to business premises), with estimated implementation time estimated over 20 days.

+ Fourth: the reception of delegations / inspections was also the content reflected by businesses, in which businesses must welcome delegations such as market management officials, local authorities / police, fire protection and intervention inspectors and other inspections / examinations at least once a year. In addition, in a year, businesses may also have to welcome other delegations / inspectors such as: Environmental Inspectorate, tax / auditing, etc. Notably, most businesses had to spend their costs to welcome these delegations / inspectors, especially when receiving tax inspection teams, market management and local authorities / police.

4. Developing programs and feasible measures to continuous improving the quality of activities, well performing the role of political, social - occupational organization of the business community, the team of entrepreneurs and people employer.

In 2018, VCCI has continued to improve the quality of operations, well performed the role of political, social - occupational organization of the business community, the team of entrepreneurs and employers. Overall, the VCCI has successfully fulfilled its role as a national organization representing the business community. The quality of activities has continued to be completed, improved, achieved comprehensive results. A number of major activities have been successfully organized. The role and position of the VCCI has continued to be enhanced, the VCCI has been trusted by the Party and the State with many important tasks. The outstanding activities in the working groups were as follows:

-  The VCCI chaired and coordinated the successful organization of the GMS Business Summit on the sidelines of the GMS 6 Summit and the 10th CLV Conference. This was a prominent initiative of Vietnam in the position of the host of the summit of GMS senior leaders to strengthen dialogue between businesses and the State, connecting businesses in the region and the world. With the theme on "finding new economic growth motivation", the Conference attracted more than 2000 businesses inside and outside the GMS region, representatives of nearly 40 provinces and cities in the country and many localities of the countries’ members.  There were about 300 domestic and international reporters to attendand reporton the Conference. The conference included plenary sessions and symposium sessions focusing on urgent issues for the development of the GSM sector such as identifying new drivers for economic growth in the context of the world economywhich were experiencing major, fundamental changes; developing modern agriculture and information for the region; developing and seeking financial resources for regional infrastructure. In particular, the Government’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attended and chaired the dialogue session between GMS leaders and GMS business community.

- Successfully organized the Vietnam Business Summit 2018 (Vietnam Business Summit - VBS 2018) within the framework of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on ASEAN 2018. The conference was attended and chaired by the Government’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Chairman of the World Economic Forum Borge Brende, with ministers, local leaders, international organizations, scholars and more than 1,300 delegates, including more than 500 foreign delegates were prestigious members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and business delegations from the United States, Korea, China, India, Chile, O Man ... together with leaders of foreign businesseswere operating in Vietnam, as well as embassies, diplomatic and economic representative offices and international organizations in Vietnam. The theme of VBS 2018 conference "Vietnam was a reliable business partner" that was the Vietnam's commitment to the whole world. The success of the conference contributed to enhancing Vietnam's reputation in the international arena, promoting the image of Vietnam as an important link of the global value chain for international investors. At the same time, VBS 2018 was an important premise for Vietnam to organize VBS 2019, making this event to become an important annual activity of domestic and foreign business community.

- Organizeda National Conference on Sustainable Development in 2018 with the theme "Enhancing competitiveness, realizing the Sustainable Development Goals in the Industrial Revolution 4.0" to facilitate and promote the development of public-private partnerships that contribute to the process of implementing the global sustainable development goals 2030 through the implementation of green growth and facilitate dissemination and extend scale of implementation of solutions on the global range. On this occasion, the representative of the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced the launch of the High-level Green Cooperation Forum for 2030 (referred to as P4G National Forum).

- Participatedin of creating favorable business environment for businesses in the spirit of Resolutions 19 and 35 of theVCCIcontinuously achieved many important results. Through activities of commenting on legal policies; summarizing the recommendations of the business community and monitoring the settlement of the central and local authorities; monitoring the creation of a favorable business environment for businesses of localities; chairing or coordinating in organizing dialogue activities of government leaders, ministries, branches and local leaders with business community such as: Vietnam Business Forum (VBF); Dialogues between provincial leaders and businesses; business dialogues with the tax authorities - Customs at the central and local levels, increasingly affirmed the role and the position of the VCCI as a national organization representing the business community, businessmen and employers in Vietnam.

- The survey, research and publication of economic and business reports has continued to be improved in quality and prestige, has become an important reference channel of state agencies, experts,businesses and people such as: Research report on "Strengthening sustainable and balanced competitiveness of Vietnam" and 36 topics on competitiveness of our country's economy and business links; annual provincial competitiveness report; research report on "Assessment of Customs administrative reforms: Satisfaction level of businesses"; reported, proposed and recommend solutions to support businesses to carry out business integrity; reported on criteria for evaluating the level of businesses development in the country and in the locality in 2017; Vietnam Business Annual Report 2017/2018 with the theme "businesses development in a digital economy" and an overview study of the Vietnam Annual Report 2018/2019; reported on Vietnamese businesses dynamics 2018; reportedon the support needs of businesses owned by women in Vietnam; reported on the current situation of applying the principle of empowerment for women ....

- Trade and investment promotion activities continued to be promoted. In 2018, the VCCI has organized 132 delegations with nearly 5,900 turns of Vietnamese businesses going abroad to survey the market, attended international conferences, sought investment and business opportunities. Notably, joining the delegation accompanying General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong paid an official visit to the Russian Federation; The business delegation accompanied the Government’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to visit and work in Australia, New Zealand, attendeda summit to celebrate ASEAN - India relations in India, attended the Asia - Europe summit (ASEM) visit 12th, attended the Partnership Summit for green growth and global goals by 2030 and officially visited the Austrian Republic, Belgium, the Kingdom of Denmark, worked with the European Union. The business delegation went with Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh attending the 2018 Global Women's Summit in Australia ... At the same time, the VCCI welcomed and arranged a work program for 375 delegations with nearly 25,600 turns of foreign businesses that came to survey and search for markets in Vietnam

In addition, the VCCI organized 580 seminars, conferences, workshops and meetings with businesses attended by nearly 63,000 businesses, with many different topics and thematic; organized 10 specialized exhibitions in Vietnam, attracted more than 49,450 visitors; advised about 19,700 businesses; provided information directly to nearly 210,000 businesses (not including more than 120 million visits to websites / information pages of VCCI).

- The representation of employers continuedfocusingon various activities such as: Participated in the formulation of labor policies and laws, focused on consultation activities to comment on plans. Revised the Labor Code 2012; supported the construction of harmonious labor relations in businesses, especially participated in the three-way labor relations mechanism, especially participated in the settlement of labor disputes and unreasonable strikes as well as strikes regulations law.Participated in negotiations and deciding the plan to adjust regional minimum wage increase in 2019 at the National Wage Council.

- The work of political mobilization in the business community, honoring and rewarding businesses continued to be strengthened with various activities to implement important policies of the Party and State such as: the Resolution 09 on developing and promoting the role of entrepreneurship; Three Resolutions of the 5th Plenum of the 12th National Assembly on improving the institution of socialist-oriented market economy; private economic development became an important driver of the economy on restructuring and innovating to improve the efficiency of state enterprises ....

However, VCCI's activities still had some shortcomings and difficulties, in which the biggest difficulty was that had to perform tasks in the context of not yet being allocated resources for each task. A number of large programs and projects supporting businesseswere slowly implemented due to lack of financial resources; the mechanism of socialization of implementation resources was not highly effective.

5. Developing and organizing the implementation of programs and projects to improving the competitiveness of businesses, programs on improving the capacity of business associations.

5.1. Training and business development activities

In 2018, VCCI organized 1,350 training courses for nearly 73,000 turns of managers and businesses with diversified contents, closed to the practice of businesses. The content focused on updating the latest information and knowledge for businesses that related to: corporate governance; management skills; marketing; ecommerce; tax - customs, information technology; developing Vietnamese and international trade laws ... At the same time, providing information and advices to businesses as well as individuals with business registration, international law, product introduction issues, market, partners, advocacy in international trade

The VCCI was also a pioneer and a leader in promoting the organization of many activities to support entrepreneurship; supported small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and supported businesses to develop sustainably.

5.2. Supporting international integration enterprises

Supportedbusinesses in free trade agreements: As a representative, a focal point to guide the business community in international trade issues, especially free trade agreements under the Decision 06 / 2012 / QD-TTg of the Government’s Prime Minister in 2018, the WTO Center and the Integration of the VCCI continued to be the largest information and advisory hub for businesses on WTO, CPTPP and other trade agreements. New important system that Vietnam is being and will participate in. At the same time, the VCCI continued to support businesses in issues related to trade defense: This was an activity to support businesses in legal issues related to economic integration, especially the use of using anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and self-defense measures in Vietnam to protect the interests of domestic industries before foreign imports.

VCCI continued maintaining and promoting t activities of the Forum / Business Council such as: Vietnam - EU, Vietnam - Latin America, Vietnam - India, Vietnam - China, Vietnam - Chau Africa - Middle East ... on a foundation that has been developed for many years, contributing to strengthening the cooperation between the Vietnamese business community and the business community in the world in many fields: Trade, investment, scientific, technical, tourism and cultural exchanges.

5.3.5.3. Capacity building activities for business associations

In 2018, the VCCI has worked with more than 25 business associations across the country to capture information on operations, advised and supported business associations in representation, connection and business development and at the same time receivedrecommendations on the production and business situation of businesses; supported and consulted for 6 business associations and clubs; organized 2 handing over meeting of business associations in the North Central and Central - Highlands in Nghe AnProvince and Da NangCity; 6 seminars to disseminate information and legal policies related to the contents of promoting institutional reform, the role of business association organizations, the economic situation, businesses and entrepreneurs; 1 conference to connect and develop business associations in the South Central region; organized 5 training courses to improve capacity and equip skills for leaders, specialized staff to do work for the association.

6. Launching the movement on "Vietnamese goods conquering Vietnamese" and mobilizingbusinesses saying no to negatives

6.1. Launching the movement on "Vietnamese goods conquering Vietnamese"

For many years, the VCCI has paid attention and regularly directed units to promote the propaganda and mobilization of businesses to improve the quality of goods, reduced costs to conquer the domestic market with more than 90 million people in various forms through conferences, seminars, talks and information systems of the VCCI. In addition, every year the VCCI continues to coordinate with business associations and businesses to promote propaganda on the campaign "Vietnamese give priority to using Vietnamese goods".

Implemented the assigned task in the Directive 26 / CT-TTg, the VCCI submitted to the Government for approval the Scheme of deploying the campaign "Vietnamese goods conquering Vietnamese ", focused on a number of issues including: Raising awareness for businesses about improving quality, reducing product prices, especially research on consumer tastes of Vietnamese to develop product lines to be suitable to the domestic market; supported to establish channels for distributing high quality Vietnamese goods to consumers, especially rural markets.

The VCCI cooperated to organize the launching ceremony of themovement on "Vietnam Goods conquering Vietnamese", on this occasion, VINGROUP launched the Vinfast brand car, with the participation of the Government’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Chairman of the VCCI and many leaders of ministries and localities. Speaking at the ceremony, the Government’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed his wish that both state and private businesses, cooperatives and individual households to invest in science and technology, market research to conquer nearly 100 million people with good products, to serve domestic consumption and export.

6.2. Mobilizingbusinesses say no to negatives

Continued implementing Project 12 on promoting the integrity of business: Cooperated with IBLF Global to complete the report at the end of the project on "supporting SMEs prevention and corruption in Vietnam"; organized consultation workshops and finalized the evaluation report on "promoting corporate integrity in Vietnam: From awareness to action". The report received attention and appreciation of the Government. Specifically, the Government recognized this initiative with great political encouragement directed by the VCCI’s leaders. Through this, increasingly affirmed the leading position of the VCCI in launching and calling for businesses to respond to the integrity of business; Studied and proactively introduced about "corporate and Government integrity initiative - GBII" to enhance the participation and cooperation of business enterprises with government agencies in anti-corruption and joint-venture activities. Developed and implemented the code of conduct and internal control system; completed the training plan for ISO 37000 - Anti-bribery in businesses in Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi Cities; organized a studied tour in the UK to study the experience of promoting integrity in the public and private sectors.

7. Proposals and recommendations

To continue implementing the Resolution 35; Directive 26 and Directive 07 in the coming time, the VCCI proposed and recommended some specific contents as follows:

- Proposed the Government in addition to assign tasks to the VCCI, there were plans to allocate resources for VCCI to implement (ensuring taskswere done in a quality and effective manner, with good impact in policy advice).

- Beside independent recommendations from the VCCI, reports and recommendations of the VCCI needed to be considered to synthesize comments and recommendations from the business community and be considered to be resolve in accordance with the law, in the direction of institutional reforms aimed to review legal documents and create a favorable business environment for businesses.

- The direction of administrative procedure reform: It was necessary to study plans for maximizing the administrative procedures under the jurisdiction of various agencies. Accordingly, businesses only needed to file at an agency and that agency then transfers the file to other agencies. Allowedbusinesses to do many procedures at the same time in order to minimize the completion of this procedure to do other procedures. Localities, even ministries, should soon implement the model of one-door public administration centers, strengthened the mechanism of supervision, monitoring and evaluation of cadres receiving and handling administrative procedures.

- Regarding the organization of dialogues between the authorities and enterprises: The organization of dialogues in the locality needed to assign business associations to prepare contents as well as invitedbusinesses to attend dialogues;neededstudying to have a mechanism for solving problems of businesses in a more efficient way, such as needed an independent agency and organization to supervise the settlement process and at the same time needed to have public assessment of results solving problems from businesses.

- Regarding businesses inspection: The provinces should thoroughly assign provincial inspection agencies to act as the focal point to control the inspection activities of businesses in the province, including the inspection of the agencies center. Accordingly, all planned inspections must be notified in advance to the provincial inspectorate to arrange in order to achieve 3 objectives: (1) reduced the number of times and time of inspection; (2) no duplicate inspection; (3) maximized the number of interdisciplinary teams instead of each unit conducted separately. Applying the risk management principle must also become a breakthrough in reforming the business environment. This should be considered as a key task of the ministries, not only stop at the research and consideration stages as the current.

- Regarding information transparency: Ministries, sectors and localities should continue to enhance information transparency on website of government agencies, especially the full posting of information such as planning and plans of local developments, public investment projects, bidding, projects calling for investment, public-private partnership projects. Information on feedback and evaluation, reflecting difficulties and complaints of businesses should also be posted, such as assessing the satisfaction of people and businesses about administrative procedures. In addition, the list of those subject to inspectionsplanned should also be posted on government agencies' websites.

- Regarding judicial reform: it was necessary to continue measures of judicial reform, especially the implementation of measures set out as a shortened procedure in civil proceedings, electronic courts and standardization of receiving applications, handling petitions. The field of civil judgment execution also needed to set clearer targets such as average sentence execution time, successful execution rate on the total number of judgment execution applications.

- Studied the roadmap for transferring public administrative service implementation to the VCCI and corporate organizations.

Above is the report on the implementation of Resolution 35 of 2018 of the VCCI.

Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry respectfully reports.