Workers operate a fabric weaving and dying assembly line in Thien Nam Sunrise Textile JSC in Nam Dinh Province. — VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam

The workshop on partnering with businesses on regulatory reforms to enhance competitiveness is the first to implement a recently-issued Resolution on improving the business environment and national competitiveness during the 2015-16 period.

Most participants at the workshop agreed with the need to establish public private partnerships to help strengthen the participation of Viet Nam's business community in regulatory reforms.

Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and Deputy Chairman of the Consultative Council for Administrative Procedure Reform, said businesses would play a key role in that process.

The improvement of national competitiveness depended on many factors but it was particularly important to build a transparent regulation to create a favourable business environment and to build a strong business community in which businesses could play a key role in the economy.

In order to promote the participation of businesses in regulatory reforms, it was essential to develop and to implement programmes aimed at improving the capacity of business associations which would then help to improve capacity, particularly among small-and medium-sized businesses, he said.

He stressed that businesses should regularly propose and respond to information from the Government via different channels such as associations and the VCCI.

Challenges and shortcomings in business activities they reported would be very important to help accelerate regulatory reforms, thus creating a more favourable business environment, he said.

Associations played a key role in these issues, so Viet Nam would increase support for them to help them assist the business community, he added.

Participants also said the VCCI and hundreds of business associations needed to improve their operation capacity, and increase studies and surveys to assess quality of the implementation of administrative procedures in order to give recommendations to the Government.

The VCCI should also work with relevant agencies to collect opinions from businesses on new policies, they said.

The United States Agency of International Development (USAID)'s Assistant Administrator for Asia Jonathan Stivers said while new laws and regulations, trade agreement commitments and commitment to reform by Governments were all essential ingredients of effective efforts to improve the business environment, but only when they were complemented with partnerships with the private sector could they be successfully transformed into effective institutional arrangements that enhanced competitiveness.

Representing the business community, Secretary General of the Viet Nam Textile and Apparel Association Dang Phuong Dung said: "We really want to improve the business environment because we have to compete with domestic businesses and also those from around the region and the world at large."

Vice Chairman of the National Assembly's Law Committee Le Minh Thong said regulatory reforms should not only focus on building and issuing legal documents, but also on how they were implemented.

He stressed that the business community determined the destiny of regulations issued by the State.

On this occasion, the VCCI and the General Department of Customs launched the 2015 Customs and Tax Satisfaction Survey, an initiative to raise the voice of businesses in regulatory reforms for trade facilitation.— VNS