TO: THE GOVERNMENT

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) is pleased to report on the implementation results of the tasks assigned in the Government's Resolution 35 / NQ-CP dated May 16, 2016 on supporting and developing enterprises till the year 2020 in first quarter o 2020, specifically as follows:

I. THE RESULTS OF THE MINISTRIES, BRANCHES AND LOCALITIES’ AGGREGRATING AND RESOLVING RECOMMENDATIONS OF BUSINESSES

1. The results of aggregating and resolving recommendations of businesses in first quarter 2020

In the first quarter 2020, the VCCI directly gathered from information channels 111 new recommendations of businesses and business associations (a decline by 170 compared to fourth quarter 2019). The results of resolving recommendations as of March 31, 2020 were presented below:

Regarding ministries, branches and localities that received recommendations in first quarter 2020, the Ministry of Finance received 33 recommendations; followed by the Ministry of Planning and Investment with 27 recommendations. 03 recommendations were submitted to the Ministry of Construction; 02 recommendations were submitted to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social affairs; 06 recommendations were submitted to the Ministry of Natural resources and Environment; 02 recommendations were submitted to the Ministry of Industry and Trade; 05 recommendations were submitted to the Ministry of Health; 04 recommendations were submitted to the State Bank. These 8 Ministries, branches and localities received 82 recommendations, accounting for 91.2% of the total number of recommendations. The recommendations received by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry of Public Security, the ministry of Science and Technology made up 8.98%. There was a decrease in the number of recommendations of enterprises and business associations in first quarter 2020, compared to fourth quarter 2019 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The VCCI gathered recommendations of businesses and business associations and submitted Official dispatch No. 0210 / PTM-PTDN dated February 25. / 2020 and Official dispatch No. 0453 / PTM-KHTH dated June 4, 2020 to the Government and the Government’s Prime Minister respectively to ask for financial support to businesses in the pandemic situation.

The recommendations submitted by businesses and business associations were mainly about requests for guidance on the implementation of legal provisions. There are also a number of recommendations on legislation and some specific cases of businesses. The content of the recommendations covers these issues below:

- The Ministry of Finance received the highest number of recommendations from businesses in first quarter 2020. The content of these recommendations includes:

+ Suggestion or Guidance on resolving difficulties and obstacles in the field of tax and customs: guidance on qualified e-invoice service providers, taxpayers’ acts of violation of tax law, import tax exemption for substitute machinery and equipment, tax refund for investment projects;

+ Guiding the application of increasing commodity price when levying import tax; reflecting the delay of check-in and delivery due to the change in sampling patterns, guiding the subcontractors' use of the investor's list of tax-free goods; guiding the provisions of law related to corporate income tax and personal income tax;

+ Request for guiding some implementation of the law on some contents: guide products and raw materials for production and internal consumption of enterprises; guiding rights offering to existing shareholders; guiding investment procedures for Japanese investors operating in the business of prize-rewarding electronic games;

- The Ministry of Planning and Investment received recommendations, most of which were about requests for guidance on the implementation of legal provisions.

+ Guiding the time of charter capital contribution of 100% foreign-invested company establishing in Vietnam, guiding the transfer of investment projects, payment of general items in package contracts, guiding naming businesses;

+ Guiding procedures for land lease outside the planning, the change of investors implementing projects, transferring investment projects, signing contracts and authorize branches, implementing the provisions of the investment registration certificate; guiding the duration of hiring warehouses to implement investment projects, procedures for licensing e-commerce activities for foreign investors, foreign investment incentive policies, and the company registration number 6420

- The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment received recommendations of enterprises, including: guidance on granting certificates of land use rights, ownership of houses and other land-attached assets to foreign-invested enterprises, solving problems on the application of the policy of refund of charge for granting mining right.

- The Ministry of Health received recommendations from enterprises, including: The contents of the recommendations included: requests for guidance on the specific cases, namely the issuance of practice certificates to healthcare practitioners and operation licenses to healthcare facilities, procedures for registration of environmental protection plans in health facilities, registration of declaration of food additives.

- The State Bank of Vietnam received 4 recommendations from businesses. The contents of the recommendations included: requests for guidelines for presenting the proof of source of money deposited into the foreigner’s account in Vietnam, guidance on the structure of external debt, requests for solutions to support enterprises facing pandemic Covid 19 difficulties.

- The contents of the recommendations received by  The Ministry of Labor- Invalids and Social Affairs are requests for guiding implementation of the law on: announcing the conformity of imported elevators and escalators at Departments of Labor-Invalids and Social Affairs of provinces and cities, short-term technology transfer training programs,...

- The contents of the recommendations received by The Ministry of Construction are requests for guiding the implementation of the law on: final settlement of lump sum contracts, consultation of management of construction investment project....

- Other ministries- The Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Health,  the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Transport, The State Bank of Vietnam and People's Committee of Da Nang, Hanoi, Binh Dinh, Vinh Long, and Phu Tho provinces received recommendations from the enterprises, related to requests for guiding periodic propaganda and training fee for FPF, franchising labels and product announcements, notification of the implementation of sales promotion programs, requests for granting   certificates of export goods under the management of the Ministry of Health's, guiding the classification of works construction of package 10 at Phu Bai International Airport, guiding procedures for enterprise dissolution, requesting Phu Tho Provincial People's Committee to resolve the problem relating to the land lease in accordance with current law, ensuring the lawful rights and interests of investors; reflecting the problems hindering the process of applying for construction permit of enterprises in Phu Tho Province…

- Other ministries: The Ministry of Industry and Trade and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs received recommendations from enterprises with the following contents: requests for guidance on food products that are not listed for safety inspection and management of investment costs of work construction…

- Other ministries: The Ministry of Transport, The Ministry of Education and training, The People's Committees of Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Hanoi and Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Ninh Binh, Binh Duong, Tien Giang, Ben Tre and Long An provinces received one recommendation of enterprises. The contents of the recommendations included: requests for extending the age limit and participants of the “ Eco-driving Honda fuel efficiency”, guiding the  application of the Law on Higher Education and the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Higher Education.

2. The implementation of answering recommendations of ministries, branches and localities

In first quarter 2020, the VCCI received 80 documents in response  to business proposals from 20 ministries, sectors and localities, which was a significant decrease compared to the fourth quarter 2019 (fourth quarter 2019 received 202 documents). These documents have been fully published on VCCI's website.

Through monitoring by the VCCI, from January 1st, 2020 to March 31st, 2020, 69 recommendations of businesses and business associations remained unanswered by ministries, branches and localities. Ministries and branches had many unanswered recommendations, including: the Ministry of Finance: 19 recommendations, the Ministry of Planning and Investment: 06 recommendations; the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment: 02 recommendations; the Ministry of Health: 05 recommendations, the Ministry of Labor-Invalids and Social Affairs: 02 recommendations, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Public Security each received 01 recommendation. Localities including People's Committees of provinces and cities: Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Da Nang, Hai Phong, Ba Ria Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Ben Tre, Long An and Ninh Binh all received recommendations, in which Hanoi received 3 petitions.

Details of unanswered proposals and responsibilities of ministries, branches and localities are presented in Appendix4 attached to the report.

- In general, ministries and agencies took initiative in receiving and promptly settling proposals of enterprises, which were transferred by the Government’s Office and the VCCI according to the Office's transfer forms. However, a number of ministries and agencies failed to respond and resolve business proposals promptly according to the Government's Office's transfer forms for the following reasons:

+ The recommendations of enterprises and business associations were often related to the provisions of law, while a number of legal documents are not clear compared to the reality, which requires the ministries, branches and localities more time to research.

+ A number of recommendations answered by ministries and branches were in favor of legal interpretation without stating specific and complete solutions.

+ The recommendations of the enterprise were often passed through many levels, which led to the lateness of ministries, branches’ receiving and responding to recommendations.

We recommended the Government’s Office to continue urging ministries, branches and localities to give a complete answer to the recommendations of enterprises, especially those outstanding from the beginning of the year 2020.

II. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE VCCI'S RESOLUTION 35 / NQ-CP

In quarter 1/2020, VCCI has implemented the following assigned tasks:

1- Implementing activities that contribute to administrative reform; create a favorable environment to support businesses.

- Proactively updated and provided information to businesses about the situation of markets in the context of the Covid epidemic and integration solutions that can be considered during and after the epidemic season such as: analyzing the impact of the epidemic on industries production and business activities of Vietnam, the risks that enterprises faced in the context of epidemics; studied how to take advantage of commitments in FTA free trade agreements, especially new-generation free trade agreements such as CPTPP, EVFTA to help businesses overcome the crisis from taking advantage of this commitments.; carried out comprehensive reports on the implementation of FTAs ​​in enterprises, reflected the problems that preventing enterprises from taking advantage of FTAs ​​and proposed specific solutions to improve the effectiveness of FTA implementation. assisting businesses in realizing opportunities from FTAs ​​to diversify the product supply and consumption market, attract FDI ...

- Coordinated the organizing the Vietnam Business Forum (VBF) at the end of 2019 with the theme "The role and contribution of the FDI business community in rapid and sustainable development". Attending and chairing the Forum were the Government’s Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung as well as representatives of FDI business associations in Vietnam. Speaking at the Forum, Chairman of VCCI stated that the domestic business and investment environment still had a space and room for further reforms in the coming time. Contributed to the overall effort to increase the motivation of economic development through improving the business environment, the VCCI conducted many studies, analyzes and reports to the Government’s Prime Minister on 25 points of conflict, large overlap between laws. regarding investment and business. The VCCI expected that if the current barriers were removed, it would contribute strongly to the economic growth of Vietnam in 2020. Representatives of FDI Enterprises Association participated in the Forum with many specific recommendations, It focused on issues related to continuing to accelerate the simplification of administrative procedures and procedures in order to maximum support enterprises, implemented e-government, and transfer some public services. ... VBF was an annual dialogue mechanism between businesses and representatives of Government agencies revolving around recommendations and proposals that VBF sent to ministries and branches earlier.

- The Public-Private Partnership Committee (Committee 17) collaborated with national and foreign experts to prepare a "green book" on public-private cooperation in Vietnam.

- Collaborated with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Ministry of Labor, the Vietnam Confederation of Labor and international organizations such as UN Woman, UNICEF ... to complete the Sustainable Enterprise Index (CSI) 2020 to deploy Program on Vietnam's Sustainable Enterprises Ranking in 2020. The csi index 2020 was completed and updated on the basis of adding more indicators of gender equality, climate change and biodiversity. ..for participating businesses can apply and deploy.

- Organized the launching ceremony of the National Start-up Program 2020 in Hanoi. This was the 18th year that VCCI launched the National Startup Program, which aims to create opportunities for young people and the startup community across the country to build startup projects of practical value, uphold the spirit of entrepreneurship in the bar. adolescents and students, promoting the shocking role of enterprises and businessmen in the cause of national economic development. This year's program was organized with a variety of activities such as investment connection presentations, the launch of the Innovation Advisory Board, the award for outstanding start-up projects in 2019 and the exemplary award. typical startup ...

- Contributed comments on some draft legal documents such as the decree to amend the MFN tariff according to the proposal of the United States; The Decree provides for electronic identification and authentication; Decree stipulating performing arts activities; Circular providing for regulation conformity certification and announcement for information and communication technology products and goods; prepared a report on free trade agreements (FTAs) for the National Assembly Supervisory Delegation; Reviewed the impact of RCEP without India to Vietnam ... (Details of the comments were updated at: http://vibonline.com.vn/tim-kiem-y-kien-vcci

2. Deploying trade, investment promotion activities and programs as well as supporting projects on the competitiveness of enterprises and business associations:

In the context of complication and negative impacts of Covid-19 epidemic, affecting the world and Vietnam economy in particular, the situation of production and business activities of domestic enterprises was seriously affected, especially was enterprises in the field of import, export, services, tourism ..., the VCCI actively implemented many specific activities to support businesses in the direction of: Quick report to the Government’s Prime Minister on the situation of enterprises under the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic and proposing solutions to rescue the business community in the current period; implementing fastest procedures for certificates of origin (C / O) and other commercial documents issued by the VCCI; supporting and advising businesses on markets, commodities, rules of origin from FTAs ​​between Vietnam and other countries, supporting businesses in market research and research. new, new customers restructuring their inputs and diversifying markets; deploying the program of disseminating FTAs ​​and advising businesses to restructure the supply and supply chain in the direction of focusing on countries and territories within the FTAs ​​that our country signed (effective and about to take effect), organizing activities to support businesses to exploit the domestic market, strengthen the connection to develop internal markets between businesses and business associations in the consumption of products and services. , sharing technology and management experience ...

- VCCI leaders had many meetings with the leaders of the Import-Export Department, the Trade Promotion Agency (the Ministry of Industry and Trade), enterprises of Vietnam Association of Mechanical Enterprises and General Construction Association. , Association of Building Materials, General Department of Fisheries ... in order to exchange and absorb the opinions, proposals and recommendations from the units, on that basis, synthesize and make general recommendations to the Government’s Prime Minister. government and related agencies.

- Continued working with partners of the ASEAN Sustainable Development Network (CSR-ASEAN network), the Business Council for World Sustainable Development (WBCSD), representatives of the Ministry of Planning and Investment on Development launch of the High-Level Global Cooperation Forum Initiative 2030 (P4G) in the new phase ...

- Conducted a quick survey of businesses and business associations on labor and employment issues, focusing on current problems when businesses have been facing difficulties in production and business activities under of Covid-19.

- Reviewed the implementation of the Project Plan 2019 on "Enhancing work skills, starting a business for young people and connecting with SMEs" (Youth Spark); The project on "Supporting women-owned SMEs to renovate their business management methods on the basis of maximizing resources to improve competitiveness and integration"; Project on "Enhancing the voice of enterprises in economic restructuring"; The project on "Enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs participating in global value chains".

- Organized a meeting between Chairman of VCCI and PhD. Chang-Hee Lee, the Director of ILO Vietnam. The meeting between the two sides to discuss about the cooperation of the VCCI and ILO as well as the advantages and disadvantages, some priorities of the VCCI to support the business community in 2020 to prepare for the implementation. The Labor Code is amended in 2019 with many new issues to challenge businesses. In 2020, the VCCI will continue to promote programs to improve the "health" of businesses, especially on competitiveness, productivity, prioritizing responsible labor practices for businesses, improved skills for workers in the business sector as well as workers in the informal sector. At the meeting, leaders of VCCI and ILO continued to affirm that the cooperation of the two organizations has been bringing positive spillover effects to the Vietnamese business community in particular and tripartite partners in general.

- Organized a number of seminars on supporting business development such as seminars on preventing frauds on origin; consultation workshop on training needs of women-owned enterprises ...; organized training courses for enterprises on "Restricting disputes, minimizing risks during the implementation of international trade contracts and updating changes in Incoterms 2020", "Making report accounting, checking settlement reports, checking after customs clearance - Updating some new regulations on customs field ”...

III. Proposals and recommendations

With the task assigned to synthesize the situation of resolving recommendations of state agencies as well as summarizing the opinions of the business community, the VCCI proposed a number of solutions to improve the quality of recommendation resolution such as after:

- Improving the quality of the System to receive and answer businesses' recommendations on the Government Web Portal.

+ Currently, the Government has just opened the National Public Service Portal which integrates both the System of receiving and responding to enterprises' recommendations into the National Public Service Portal. However, using the new interface on the National Public Service Portal is not as convenient as it used to be. The search engine follows criteria such as dispatch numbers, business names or sender names that are sometimes incorrect. The system of receiving and replying to proposals needs to be connected with the ministries and branches in order to ensure that the recommendations are posted on the system, the ministries, branches and localities also receive and actively answer and resolve. Proposing to continue researching and improving to facilitate businesses to send and look up recommendations.

- Accelerated the receipt and transfer of proposals of state administrative agencies to ministries, branches and localities to promptly reply to recommendations.

Above is a report on the implementation of the tasks assigned in the Government's Resolution 35 / NQ-CP on supporting and developing enterprises by 2020 in the first quarter of 2020, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry respectfully reports to the Government.