The Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta region have improved their rankings in the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), the head of Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI)’s legal department has said.

Speaking at a conference in PCI in 2017 held in Can Tho last week, Dau Anh Tuan said the PCI of the delta had risen rapidly last year, with some provinces leading the country in areas such as administrative reform.

Delta authorities, for example, created the “Business Coffee” model in Dong Thap Province and an “Every Monday” meeting with businesspeople in Can Tho City.

Pham Thi Ngoc Dao, deputy director of the provincial Department of Finance, said the meetings allow authorities and local enterprises to discuss problems and come up with solutions.

Despite the progress in the PCI, the Delta’s index of quality labourers has not yet changed in the last five years, and labour training facilities have improved only slowly, according to Nguyen Phuong Lam, deputy director of VCCI in Can Tho City.

To attract investment from big enterprises, high-quality labourers play an important role.

Only 10 per cent of labourers are trained in the delta, which has 10 million workers, as compared with the average level of labourers of 20 per cent in the country, according to a report in Tuoi Tre (Young) newspaper.

The delta should have plans to attract high-quality labourers to the area, Tuan said.

The other barriers include lack of good services to assist enterprises, and limited quality of execution in some departments and sectors.

Vu Tien Loc, chairman of VCCI, said that to solve the problem, the authorities of the delta should create a District Competitiveness Index (DCI) like the northern province of Quang Ninh.

The index measures the efficiency of economic management of the local government through eight criteria, including transparency, pro-active leadership, time costs of regulatory compliance, informal charges, policy bias, legal institutions, business support and accountability of leaders.

In 2016, Quang Ninh ranked second out of 63 provinces and cities in provincial competitiveness index. – VNS