The Prime Minister’s Working Group on Administrative Reform has ordered ministries, People’s Committees and Councils, Government agencies and State-owned enterprises to renew their effort to reduce their administrative costs by 30 %.

The group has identified 256 procedures at 18 ministries and six provinces and cities to be given priority for revision and abolition, said its chairman Government’s Office Chief Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

If approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as part of the Government’s Plan 30 for administrative reform, the streamlined procedures would help save more than VND 6 trillion (US$55 million), he said.

The chairman said that up to 90% of administrative procedures had been simplified but savings had been less than 10%.

“The benefits could be much higher if we can devise effective measures to streamline more than 5,000 remaining procedures,” said Phuc.

The group identified the procedures required for building a house; paying taxes; clearing goods through customs; arranging a health check and registering a residence as the most troublesome.

Members of subordinate working groups charged with overseeing administrative reform agreed the proposed streamlining is crucial but warned old-style management and egos would prove a hurdle to its introduction.

Phuc said the group had invited the participation of social association so as to better understand the aspirations of businesses and the people and to avoid any misuse of power.

The group would now seek the opinions of 50 lawyers as part of the second phase of Plan 30.

“We have also invited experts from Europe and the Republic of Korea to compare Vietnam’s administrative procedures with those of other countries,” he said.

The first phase of Plan 30 was completed with the establishment of a national database of administrative procedures last October.

It was the first time Vietnam had put such procedures online and provided public access to 5,700 procedures and 100,000 forms.

The database enabled people to know clearly what administrative formalities they had to complete and at which agency, said Phuc.

The Finance Ministry says it has revised 145 procedures and abolished 32, creating a cost saving of VND 2.1 trillion (about US$113.5 million)
It plans to revise 840 procedures by the end of the year. (VNA)