Attending the Workshop, on the side of VCCI, there were Mr. Hoang Quang Phong - Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Vice Chairman of VCCI; Mr. Bui Xuan Sinh - Director of VCCI Nghe An - Ha Tinh - Quang Binh Branch; Experts representing the Legal Department of VCCI. On the side of Nghe An province, there were Mr. Hoang Nghia Hieu - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee; Nguyen Nam Dinh - Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council; Bui Thanh An - Member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Nghe An province. Also attending were representatives of provincial departments, branches, representatives of provincial associations and business associations; Leaders of the Investment Promotion Support Board of Quang Ninh province and delegates at the People's Committees' bridge points of 21 districts, cities and towns of Nghe An province.

In his opening speech, Mr. Bui Thanh An - Vice Chairman of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee said that, realizing the importance of the PCI Index in improving the business investment environment, attracting investment and economic growth, since 2012, Nghe An has promptly issued and organized the implementation of the Project to improve and enhance the PCI Index with many synchronous solutions. From 2019 to 2022, Nghe An province has always maintained high rankings, ranked first in the North Central region and always in the top 30 leading provinces in the national PCI ranking (in 2022, ranked 23rd out of 63 provinces and cities, with a total score of 66.6). However, in 2023, Nghe An's PCI index has dropped significantly. "That result partly shows that our reform efforts have not been as effective as expected, even showing signs of regression. That also shows that there are still barriers, bottlenecks, and inadequacies in management, operation, and public service implementation that make the business community not really satisfied; seriously affecting the trust of the business community and investors," Mr. Bui Thanh An frankly shared.

According to Mr. An, Nghe An province cannot blame objective factors, but must frankly recognize, analyze, and find the core causes and breakthrough solutions to improve the investment and business environment, improve the province's PCI Index.

Speaking at the Workshop, Mr. Hoang Quang Phong - Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Vice President of VCCI said that over the past 19 years, the PCI Index has basically reflected the actual quality of economic management of provincial-level localities, including the building of a favorable business environment for the development of private enterprises along with the administrative reform (AR) efforts of localities, including Nghe An. The province has made many efforts and achieved good results in improving the business environment, attracting investment and improving the PCI Index. "However, the government needs to try harder because PCI is recognized and evaluated by businesses in Nghe An. The business community together with authorities at all levels need to have more interactions to remove existing "bottlenecks" to improve the PCI Index in the future. VCCI is committed to working with the government and business community to have appropriate support programs to raise businesses' awareness of competitiveness and improve the PCI Index in the coming time,' Mr. Hoang Quang Phong emphasized.

At the Workshop, the representative of the Legal Department, VCCI reported briefly on the process of conducting the PCI Index assessment survey in localities as well as the results of the PCI Index of Nghe An in 2023 as well as in recent years. Although the PCI Index of Nghe An in 2023 is not in the Top 30, many component indexes (CSTP) have positive changes such as: Market entry, Transparency, Time cost, Business support policy. Based on a clear analysis of the CSTPs increasing and decreasing in points and rankings, the expert also pointed out the shortcomings, difficulties, trends of acceptance, competition to improve the investment and business environment of the province.

In addition, the expert of the Legal Department mentioned the Provincial Green Index (PGI) as a collection of business perceptions and conveying the "voice" of the entire business community on the quality of environmental governance to authorities at all levels. The PGI provides local policymakers with an insight into the links between economic development and environmental sustainability and how these two factors combine to generate long-term growth.

Commenting on the Workshop, representatives of Departments, Branches, Vinh City People's Committee, Nghi Loc District, Quang Ninh Province Investment Promotion and Support Board, representatives of Business Associations, and the business community in Nghe An highly appreciated the importance of the PCI Index for the government, experience in improving the PCI Index, causes and solutions, the role of VCCI and Business Organizations in handling recommendations and difficulties for businesses. Many opinions boldly and frankly shared and suggested ways to maintain the CSTP, improve the ranking of low CSTPs such as Informal Costs, Fair Competition... and recommended to the Provincial People's Committee to have a roadmap and strong, synchronous solutions to further improve the business environment, attract investment and improve the PCI Index in 2024 and the following years. 

As the representative agency of VCCI in the region, Mr. Bui Xuan Sinh - Director of VCCI Nghe An - Ha Tinh - Quang Binh Branch frankly shared in writing his experiences, proposals and solutions in upgrading the PCI Index in the coming years. With a proactive and drastic spirit, the efforts of all levels, sectors and the business community, the socio-economic situation of the province has achieved many positive results. In the past 2 consecutive years, Nghe An has continuously ranked in the Top 10 nationwide in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). In 2023, for the first time, the total FDI capital in Nghe An province exceeded the 1.6 billion USD mark and ranked 8th among the localities attracting the most FDI capital in the country.

In order for the province's investment environment to become increasingly progressive, transparent, and public in order to enhance competitiveness, improve the PCI Index, and attract more investment projects, comrade Bui Xuan Sinh said that Nghe An province needs to focus on a number of tasks and solutions such as: Nghe An Provincial People's Committee continues to work with VCCI and Business Associations to collect and listen to opinions of businesses and investors to remove difficulties and obstacles, support and promote business development through regular meetings and dialogues with businesses and business organizations; administrative reform in the province still has limitations and shortcomings such as: administrative institutions still have some shortcomings and are not yet synchronized; the effectiveness and feasibility of some mechanisms and policies in the province are not high. Administrative procedures in some fields, departments, and localities are still cumbersome, formal, and of low quality, causing businesses to lose a lot of time, costs, opportunities, and trust. The government needs to quickly amend, supplement and perfect mechanisms and policies to create a more open and attractive investment environment; promote administrative reform, focus on building e-government and digital government to reduce the number, time and costs for businesses; streamline and improve the quality and ethics of public servants and public employees to build an honest and effective government. Although the labor force is abundant, the quality of human resources is still limited, especially skilled, technical and highly qualified workers; industrial style and professionalism of workers are still limited. This causes many difficulties for businesses, especially large enterprises with strict labor requirements. To solve this problem, the government and departments and branches need specific and synchronous solutions such as improving teaching, enhancing the quality of general and university education; linking with businesses in vocational training; Organize short-term, effective vocational training courses that closely follow the needs of businesses; organize job fairs more frequently and effectively; promote communication work, enhance coordination between departments, VCCI and business associations in propaganda, survey and forecast labor supply and demand;...

In particular, the decline in CSTP Informal Costs will lead to a decline in the Time Costs, Dynamic and Creative Indexes and indirectly affect the trust of the business community in the leaders. Therefore, the province needs to strongly strengthen the work of preventing and combating corruption; inspect the implementation of state regulations, strengthen discipline, improve public ethics, build a team of truly clean and competent officials, civil servants and public employees to meet work requirements; promptly and strictly handle cases of taking advantage of positions, powers and assigned tasks to cause difficulties for people and businesses. On behalf of the provincial leaders, Mr. Bui Thanh An - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee received and thanked the contributions and proposed a number of solutions from the delegates. He said that the province is very interested in and determined to improve the PCI Index and plans to have many groups of solutions and tasks assigned to relevant Departments, Branches as well as local authorities to implement. In particular, the Vice Chairman requested that leaders of departments, branches and local authorities must frankly acknowledge the shortcomings, make maximum efforts to implement tasks and solutions to create maximum conditions for the business community in production and business activities, further improve the business environment to attract investment and improve the PCI Index in the coming years./.