Speaking at the PCI 2024 announcement ceremony, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), affirmed that PCI is a tool that honestly reflects the business community's experience in the quality of economic governance in localities. At the same time, PCI results help compare provinces and cities, creating a driving force to promote substantial and continuous reform of the business environment.

Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) pointed out 9 prominent trends in provincial-level management in 2024

Thereby, Mr. Tuan pointed out 9 prominent trends in provincial-level management in 2024, and at the same time sent a message of stronger reform to provincial and municipal authorities across the country.

According to Mr. Tuan, the first positive trend recorded this year is that the quality of labor in many localities has had clear changes.

“The rate of enterprises that give good assessments of general education and vocational education reached 68% and 63% respectively, a significant increase compared to 2023. Notably, 54% of enterprises said that the local workforce fully or mostly meets their recruitment needs - this figure is much higher than the 47% of last year,” Mr. Tuan shared.

In addition, the recruitment process has also become easier, especially in three important positions: general workers, technical staff and management and supervision staff. The rate of enterprises that have favorable conditions in recruiting general workers reached 63%, technical staff 37%, and management and supervision staff 30%. These figures show a positive change in the local labor market.

The second trend emphasized by Mr. Dau Anh Tuan is the clear improvement in transparency and access to local planning and legal information. The median score for ease of accessing planning and legal documents in 2024 is the highest ever. The proportion of businesses that said they needed connections to access provincial documents has dropped to 31%, compared to 61% in 2021. This is the lowest level since 2006.

The third trend is that market entry is becoming easier, especially in business registration procedures. According to Mr. Tuan, 93% of businesses surveyed said they found the procedures transparent, 91% received full instructions, and 86% were satisfied with the attitude and expertise of the reception staff. However, he also noted that conditional business licensing is still a weakness, with less than half of businesses expressing satisfaction in this area.

Guests attending the PCI 2024 Announcement Ceremony

Sharing about the fourth trend, the Deputy Secretary General of VCCI said that in the context of many fluctuating operating factors, legal institutions and the security and order environment in localities continue to be highly appreciated by businesses, playing the role of a "stable fulcrum" in reform. 91% of businesses believe in the ability of the law to protect issues such as copyright and contract enforcement. This is a stable level over the past 4 years, demonstrating the increasingly strong confidence of businesses. Not only that, the trial work of courts at all levels also received positive assessments. Up to 93% of businesses said that the courts tried cases in accordance with the law, 88% said that economic cases were resolved quickly and judgments and decisions were promptly enforced. Along with that, 83% of businesses rated the local security and order situation as good - the highest rate in the past 3 years.

However, with the 5th trend, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan also frankly pointed out a worrying fact that the dynamism and pioneering nature of the provincial government - which is the driving force for reform - is showing signs of slowing down.

Regarding the 6th trend on the quality of administrative procedure settlement, the representative of VCCI said that although some positive results were still maintained, in general there were signs of slowing down compared to previous years. The rate of businesses having to spend more than 10% of their time to learn and implement legal regulations increased to 24%, higher than the 20% in the previous two years. The time to carry out administrative procedures also tends to be longer, while the convenience of traveling to complete the procedures has decreased slightly. Only 79% of businesses said they did not have to make multiple trips to complete procedures, down from 82–83% in 2022–2023.

VCCI Deputy Secretary General said that the quality of administrative procedure settlement has shown signs of slowing down compared to previous years

“A notable bright spot is the effectiveness of online administrative procedures. 79% of businesses confirmed that they had no difficulty in carrying out online administrative procedures; 78% said that online procedures helped reduce costs, and 79% confirmed that they saved time. This is a positive signal showing that digital transformation is effective in public administrative reform,” Mr. Tuan assessed.

The seventh trend was assessed by Mr. Tuan as one of the most worrying challenges in PCI 2024. Specifically, businesses' access to land is becoming increasingly difficult. Only 33% of businesses said they had no difficulty accessing land – a sharp decrease from 55% in 2021, 48% in 2022 and 41% in 2023. Not stopping there, the rate of businesses completing land procedures in the past two years without encountering any problems is only 51%.

The eighth trend is that informal costs are showing signs of returning. This year, 37% of businesses said they had to pay informal costs, a slight increase compared to 33% in 2023. In particular, the areas with a high rate of businesses having to pay informal costs include inspections - checks, conditional business procedures, land procedures, etc.

However, the Deputy General Secretary of VCCI also noted a bright spot in this picture, only 2.3% of businesses said that informal costs accounted for over 10% of business, continuing a steady downward trend since 2010. Compared to the figure of nearly 13% in 2006, the burden of informal costs has decreased significantly. At the same time, the rate of businesses having disputes but not daring to file lawsuits for fear of "running the case" has also decreased sharply, from 53% last year to 44% this year.

The final trend emphasized by Mr. Dau Anh Tuan is that the overall picture of PCI 2024 shows a trend of continuous improvement in governance quality at the local level.

“The median score of this year’s annual PCI reached 67.67 points – the highest level since we started the survey nearly 20 years ago. The original PCI in 2024 reached 68.18 points, an increase of 1.6 points compared to 2023,” said Mr. Tuan.