PCI 2013: Ben Tre making leapfrog to top 6 best rankings

At the Launch of the 2013 Provincial Competitiveness Index last month in Ha Noi, held by the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) with support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the ninth-year report indicated the comments of 8,093 non-state enterprises and opinions of 1,609 FDI businesses operating in the country over the quality of business environment governance in all 63 provinces and cities.

As the PCI report showed, Ben Tre province scored 62.78 points to significantly improve its ranking by leapfrogging 20 places to the 6^th place. This placed the province among the “Very good” group of provinces and cities on the ranking list. In the Mekong Delta, Ben Tre is the third best province.

Top seven provinces and cities were honoured at the launch of the 2013 PCI. (Photo by My Linh)

What is new for this year’s PCI report is that it was built upon compiling 10 sub-indices, compared to the nine sub-indices of 2012.

Of the 10 sub-indices, Ben Tre made good performances in 6 sub-indices and gained big, notably in the time cost (up 2.84 points), business assistance services (up 2.32 points), legal institutions (up 1.91 points), informal cost (up 1.59 points), access to land use (up 1.24 points) and labour training (up 0.16 points).

The 2013 PCI ranking was a result from the province’s uninterrupted efforts in the past year. Many works have been done for a better business and investment environment, such as continuous revision and simplification of administrative formalities, creating closer work between departments and authirities to better deal with investment procedures, providing businesses and investors with great convenience in the investment application process by applying the so-called “one door” procedure at the Investment Promotion Centre of Ben Tre (IPC Ben Tre). This procedure is advisable because it helps investors reduce the cost and time following the process, and it creates a single-phased system of assistance for businesses and investors from the start of investment certificate granting process until after the certificate is granted and projects are carried out.

Beside big gains in 6 sub-indices, Ben Tre also underperformed in 3 other sub-indices. Although the loss of points are insignificant, it indicates that the province has not met investors’ expectations in such parameters as cost of market access, dynamicity, a transparent business environment and business-related information.

In light of the 2013 PCI report, the leadership in Ben Tre is determined to keep their current competitiveness by continuing with efforts they have been done in implementing the Action plan to upgrade the PCI in the duration of 2012-2015.

Translated by Truong Hung