The 2022 PCI results report continues to reflect the difficulties that enterprises face in their production and business activities. Due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and many complicated developments of the world economic situation, Binh Duong's PCI had a significant decrease, reaching 65.13 points (down 4.48 points), ranked 36 out of 63 provinces and cities nationwide (down 30 places compared to 2021). Evaluation results show that only 01 sub-index increased; the remaining 09 sub-indices all decreased.

Notably, the entry costs sub-index (reached 6.32 points, down 0.06 points; the national median is 6.95 points), the lowest in the past 6 years. Some indicators decreased in points such as Enterprise registration time (median) decreased by 0.5 days, ranked 50^th out of 63 provinces and cities; Time to change enterprise registration content (median) increased by 4 days, from 6 days to 10 days, ranked 60^th out of 63 provinces and cities. The entry costs sub-index is evaluated based on the results of enterprises' feedback on a number of procedures for registering enterprise establishment and completing procedures to officially operate. If facilitated, not only will enterprises benefit, but the locality will also benefit after the enterprise goes into operation. The bottleneck that exists and is most difficult to solve today is the interconnectivity and interdisciplinary nature in solving document problems for enterprises.

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The 2022 PCI continues to reflect the difficulties that enterprises face in production and business activities

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Toan - Director of the Department of Industry and Trade said that in order to improve the PCI, first of all, it is necessary to pay attention to the entry costs sub-index, which plays a very important role. Therefore, the province needs to have a mechanism for communication and coordination among departments and branches in handling administrative procedures for enterprises. For documents of problems arising between departments and branches, almost enterprises have to contact themselves to handle, which greatly affects the cost and time of enterprises. Departments and branches need to sit together to solve problems for enterprises. Besides, there also needs to be public transparency about receiving and processing documents; list of returned documents, clearly stating the reason for returning the documents as well as announcing the specific resolution time for backlog documents.

Accessing land is also an important sub-index that helps the province improve the environment and create an attractive and reliable destination for investors. The issue of accessing land and maintaining stability in the process of using land to serve production and business is of particular concern to enterprises before making investment decisions. In 2022, in this sub-index, Binh Duong reached 7.06 points (down 0.15 points); in which, there were 9^th out of 14 component indicators that decreased; ranked 26^th out of 63 provinces and cities (down 1 place), the national median was 6.98 points.

However, the field of access to land in Binh Duong still has positive bright spots: The number of days waiting to be granted a land use right certificate (median) decreased by 27.5 days, ranked 20^th out of 63 provinces and cities nationwide; Enterprises that did not face obstacles in accessing, expanding business premises increased by 22%; Enterprises assessed the risk of land expropriation decreased by 0.13%; the time limit for settling land documents that is longer than the time limit listed or regulated in writing, ranked 7^th out of 63 provinces and cities nationwide.

At the questioning session between the two meetings of the Provincial People's Council on the situation and results of administrative reform implementation, Mr. Ngo Quang Su - Director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment said that the Department has made many efforts to achieve good results in administrative procedure reform. However, because the land field is sensitive and complex, while land legal policies frequently change, although it has been supplemented, updated, and adjusted, there are still many inadequacies, problems, and not consistent with reality; the Central Government's guiding documents are sometimes not timely, causing confusion during the implementation process. The handling of transitional content between old and new laws has not been thoroughly guided; some regulations have not been guided or the instructions are unclear, etc. leading to certain difficulties in resolving land-related procedures.

Comparison table of 10 PCI sub-indices in 2021 and 2022

It can be seen that in the past time, the efficiency of resolving administrative procedures has improved significantly; however, more reform efforts are still needed in some areas that still cause trouble and difficulties for enterprises such as land, construction, fire prevention and fighting, regulations on conditional business lines are overlapping and complicated, and enterprises have little access to relevant information.

On the other hand, the equipment system serving to resolve administrative procedures for people and enterprises at the one-stop-shop section has not met the needs of officials, civil servants and people. The administrative procedure handling system often generates errors, causing congestion in the processing and operating machinery to resolve and return results to enterprises. Along with that, the population database and enterprise data are in the setup or "cleaning" stage, so the process of implementing public services is still difficult; due to regulations on confidentiality and authentication of information. Therefore, enterprises do not appreciate that implementing online administrative procedures will help enterprises save time and costs. This is also one of the reasons why the sub-indices dropped.

In addition, according to Mr. Le Thanh Toan - Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment, the amount of work is large, new tasks often arise unexpectedly in addition to the tasks assigned according to the law, and the number of documents that must be resolved during the day is large. With the number assigned to be in charge of the one-stop-shop section, it is difficult to perform well the professional work and assigned tasks (the quantity and processing time of documents cannot be guaranteed). This puts great pressure on enterprise registration and also affects enterprise satisfaction, affecting the province's PCI sub-indices.

Always accompany the enterprises

In 2023, with the determination to create an open, transparent, dynamic and favorable business environment for economic sectors, attract investment and develop enterprises, Binh Duong aims to bring the PCI back to the TOP 10 in 2023. The PPC held a meeting to analyze and evaluate the causes, limitations and solutions to remove and improve the PCI.

Directing at the meeting to discuss solutions to improve the province's PCI, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee (PPC) Vo Van Minh emphasized that improving the PCI not to "run after" rankings, the goal is to be intrinsically effective, identified as a breakthrough to improve the business environment, enhance competitiveness, promote economic growth, and satisfy the satisfaction of people and enterprises. The PPC Chairman requested relevant departments, branches and localities to further simplify administrative procedures and shorten the time for granting Enterprise registration licenses. Compiling statistics on returned enterprise registration procedures and proactively contacting enterprises to guide them; strengthening dialogue and removing difficulties for enterprises. Implementing transparency in bidding and strengthening prevention and fight against corruption; supporting providing clear guidance documents for enterprises; carrying out vocational training, job introduction, and supporting enterprises in training to improve workers' skills, etc.

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Provincial leaders visit and survey the production and business situation of enterprises

Along with that, the PPC also approved the Plan to improve and raise the province's PCI in the 2023 - 2025 period. In the spirit of viewing enterprises' difficulties as government difficulties, the Plan focuses on two goals: Accompanying enterprises to overcome difficulties, stabilize and develop their business, creating conditions to attract many enterprises to Binh Duong; strengthening coordination, improving proactiveness and efficiency in management and administration, guiding and supporting enterprises towards the satisfaction of people and enterprises (especially small and medium-sized enterprises).

Faced with negative impacts from the world economic and political situation that have affected the production and business activities of enterprises; timely companionship and support from the government is extremely important. According to the plan, the province will continue to strengthen dialogue with enterprises; from there, there will be clear and consistent policies to remove difficulties for enterprises. Paying attention to the role and voice of the enterprise community and associations in the process of policy planning and monitoring the province's policy implementation.

At the same time, paying attention to fairness and equality in implementing support policies, as well as providing information, solving problems and difficulties for large and small enterprises. Promoting investment promotion through many flexible methods, propagating and introducing the province's investment environment through foreign channels, through forums and Vietnamese representative agencies abroad and foreign investment promotion organizations in Viet Nam. Strengthening the implementation of programs and conferences to connect investment needs and cooperation between foreign and domestic investors, and between other local enterprises, contributing to reducing production costs of investors, as well as increasing production and management capacity of domestic enterprises participating in the global value chain.

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Strengthening administrative procedure reform is one of the solutions contributing to improving the PCI

The plan also clearly states urgent and long-term solutions to improve the business investment environment. In particular, focusing on building a dynamic and friendly government image; creating strong changes from the contingent of officials and civil servants, simplifying procedures, improving processes, shortening the time for establishment registration, changing and supplementing in business registration and issuance of investment certificates. Reviewing and proposing competent agencies to consider and decide on amending, supplementing, replacing or abolishing overlapping and conflicting regulations; amending, supplementing and proposing to improve legal regulations in general and regulations related to improving the business environment and enhancing the province's competitiveness in particular. Establishing a Business Guidance Team at the Provincial Public Administration Center to promptly guide and handle application problems for enterprises. Concentrating resources to ensure administrative procedure documents are processed on time, in the order and procedures according to regulations.

To solve problems in the management and settlement of land procedures; the PPC assigned the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to preside over and coordinate in reviewing, advising the PPC to propose the improvement of mechanisms, policies and legal regulations on management, exploitation and effective use of land resources; propose appropriate mechanisms and policies in management and creation of a clean land fund for socio-economic development and investment attraction. Promoting the construction of a digital land database system to quickly put it into operation and better serve the State management of land; regularly updating to ensure accuracy, synchronization, and expanding information sharing, making it easy for people and enterprises to access, exploit, and use. Strengthening administrative procedure reform on land, with priority given to the application of digital transformation achievements, to ensure shortening of document processing time according to regulations, etc.

Although the province's 2022 PCI decreased, according to VCCI's report, Binh Duong still has bright spots in terms of business investment environment, in which infrastructure continues to be the province's strength (ranked 3^rd in the country). Binh Duong is also in the group of provinces and cities having the highest proportion of foreign-invested enterprises with production and business expansion projects.

With existing strengths and determination to innovate and improve the investment environment, it is believed that Binh Duong will continue to be an attractive destination for investors.​