Long An always makes efforts to satisfy businesses

Long An always improves further in the investment environment, as well as PCI and becomes more attractive to investors

Connecting government and businesses 

Results of the PCI ranking in 2019 by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) announced, Long An ranked 8th in the rankings, reaching a score of 68.82 out of 100 points, belonging to the good group. Compared to 2018, Long An dropped 5 places but the score increased by 0.73. In 2019, Long An has 5 increasing component indexes including transparency and access to information, dynamism of provincial governments, legal institutions and security and order, cost of time and business support services. Five decreasing component indexes are market entry, informal costs, labor training, land access and fair competition.

According to VCCI, in 2019, most of the provinces in the top list increased their points. This shows that the quality of local economic management has improved sharply over time, as a positive "race" of localities in the eyes of the business community. In the past year, about 70-80 percent of businesses expressed satisfaction with the behavior of public authorities. Confidence of businesses is continuously aroused through many forms of cohesion between businesses and local authorities in many ways.

Ben Luc is currently one of the localities with a fairly large number of businesses investing, manufacturing and trading with about 1,900 businesses and branches. To connect between businesses and local authorities, a few years ago, district leaders organized the form of "Cafe for businessmen", maintaining activities every 2 weeks. Chairman of People's Committee of Ben Luc District - Tran Van Tuoi shared: "This is a bridge for the district to grasp the thoughts, aspirations as well as difficulties in order to support and help businesses overcome difficulties". The administrative reform is also focused on implementing, especially at the district's Public Administration Center, the rate of early and on-time application processing in 2019 and the first 5 months of 2020 reached nearly 99 percent.

In 2019, the Long An Economic Zone Authority (LAEZA) was one of the units that drastically implemented administrative reforms as well as engaged businesses. The LAEZA has applied the executive management software and the "one-stop shop" software in receiving and processing dossiers. The Board currently has 57 administrative procedures provided with public administration services at level 3 and 4. The provincial Head of LAEZA - Nguyen Thanh Thanh informed that the application of information technology was strengthened in management activities bringing high effectiveness, resolving administrative records and procedures for organizations and individuals. In 2019 and the first months of 2020, the committee has settled documents and administrative procedures 100 percent on time. Through surveys, collecting opinions from businesses and investors about the committee's support in resolving related issues, the results are 100 percent satisfied.

Huu Thanh IP is under construction, striving to attract investors to directly produce in the third quarter of 2020.

Striving more

Currently, the province has 19 industrial parks (IPs) eligible to receive direct investment in production and business. In 2020, the LAEZA strives to have 4 new IPs with infrastructure construction, which are eligible to receive direct investors, including An Nhut Tan, Huu Thanh, Slico and Viet Phat. Mr. Nguyen Thanh Thanh said that the LAEZA will continue to monitor and supervise, promptly remove difficulties and obstacles to create favorable conditions to attract direct investment according to regulations in the industrial park in the coming time. Particularly, IP also encounters ground clearance, coordination committee of departments, branches and localities gives priority to the locations that greatly affect the progress of construction of technical infrastructure, urge investors to build infrastructure. IPs are preparing investment procedures to urge and guide the implementation, if the incompetent investor will propose to revoke the policy, retransfer the investment to qualified investors to contribute to speeding up the process of industrial development of the province.

In 2019, the province's PCI recorded 5 decline in the index of cities, of which the lowest score was labor training with 6.2 points (down 0.1 point compared to 2018). Deputy Director of Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs (Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs) - Nguyen Dai Tanh said that although vocational training has made positive changes, the number of employees in the province has currently not met the enterprises’ recruitment needs, resulting in the rate of labor of the province meeting the demand decreasing. The proportion of trained workers working in enterprises is low, but the cost for labor training increases.

According to the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, in 2019, vocational training institutions in the province recruited 24,721 people, including 2,910 people at college and secondary school, accounting for 11.77 percent; primary level and regular training under 3 months 21,811 people, accounting for 88.23 percent. The scale of enrollment of vocational training by vocational training institutions increases every year but it is still low compared to the potential and demands of the labor market. According to Mr. Nguyen Dai Tanh, the sector is trying to overcome these limitations. The Department instructs vocational education institutions to strengthen coordination with enterprises to deploy vocational education and training activities according to orders of businesses. At the same time, teachers and students are organized to practice internships, access new technology and attach to job creation after training. The Department also promotes guidance for enterprises to organize vocational training, issue certificates for employees in enterprises in accordance with the provisions of Circular No. 43/2015/TT-BLĐTBXH, dated October 20, 2015 of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs on regular training. This will help businesses recruit qualified workers, the right manufacturing industry as well as human resources to serve industrial parks and clusters that are attracting businesses to invest directly in production and business.

Together with reforming administrative procedures, linking businesses and authorities, management agencies, the province is trying to improve the quality of transport infrastructure, energy, urban services, etc. Hopefully, the efforts that branches and localities are making will create more motivation for Long An to further improve the investment environment as well as PCI, becoming a more attractive destination in the eyes of investors.

By Mai Huong – Translated by Duc Tam

Source: http://baolongan.vn/long-an-luon-no-luc-de-doanh-nghiep-hai-long-a96407.html