Removing the “bottleneck of the bottleneck”

Only by thoroughly overcoming institutional bottlenecks can all resources be unleashed for the country to develop, creating a solid foundation to bring the country into a new era.

Procedural barriers

At the recent workshop "Removing legal bottlenecks for investment in infrastructure and real estate development", Mr. Nguyen Huu Duong, Chairman of Hoa Binh Company, shared some very noteworthy things. According to him, in response to the Government's call to build 1 million social housing units, in 2021, Hoa Binh applied to build social housing.

The National Assembly voted to pass the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Securities Law; Accounting Law; Independent Audit Law; State Budget Law; Law on Management and Use of Public Assets; Tax Management Law; Personal Income Tax Law; National Reserve Law; Law on Handling of Administrative Violations at the 8th session of the 15th National Assembly.

Although the company has 3,500 square meters of legal land and has submitted documents, the project has not been licensed despite being submitted to the departments and agencies 11 times for comments on land procedures. "Many regulations in legal documents have different interpretations and explanations. There are regulations that I don't know who to ask because I don't know which level to ask," Mr. Duong confided.

At the group discussion session on the draft Law on Planning and Law on Investment (amended) at the 8th session of the 15th National Assembly, when mentioning the simplification of administrative procedures, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung told a story about construction procedures in the United Arab Emirates.

"It only took five years to build Dubai City with 500 buildings, worth 20 billion USD. Meanwhile, each five-star hotel in Vietnam takes three years of procedures. If Dubai were built with a "forest" of regulations in Vietnam, it would take... 1,500 years," said Mr. Dung.

Mr. Dung continued to cite the story in China, where the procedure for building an automobile factory worth more than 1 billion USD from licensing to completion took only 11 months; building a commercial center, both procedures and implementation took only 68 days.

" The world is developing rapidly, we cannot delay any longer," said the Minister of Planning and Investment, adding that this reform in law-making is very strong, a great revolution.

Institutional thinking innovation

At the opening session of the 8th session of the 15th National Assembly, General Secretary To Lam delivered a speech highlighting three major "bottlenecks" in the country today, including institutions, infrastructure and human resources, in which institutions are considered the "bottleneck of bottlenecks".

The above content is highly appreciated by many National Assembly delegates and experts, who also believe that this is the issue that needs to be resolved first in order to create a strong driving force to help the country develop quickly and sustainably.

Delegate Nguyen Van Manh, member of the National Assembly's Economic Committee, said that General Secretary To Lam's directives were very timely and consistent with current realities. Faced with inadequacies and overlaps between legal regulations, creating bottlenecks, institutional clearance is the most important resource clearance for socio-economic development.

Meanwhile, member of the National Assembly's Finance and Budget Committee Hoang Van Cuong expressed his opinion: Up to this point, we see very clearly and are determined to completely change our thinking about law-making and institutional thinking.

This is clearly shown when previously only 1 law was used to amend 1 law, but recently 1 law is used to amend many laws. That is the sign that "cannot sit and wait anymore".

"There are laws that have just been passed in the previous session and must be amended immediately in the next session. We accept that they must follow the breath of life," Mr. Cuong said, adding that the National Assembly is not concerned about the fact that the previous session just approved them and the next session amends them. The National Assembly can meet all night and on holidays, and the National Assembly's agencies often work with lights on, aiming to remove the institutions in the most timely manner.

Stronger reforms

Dr. Do Duc Hong Ha, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly's Judicial Committee, said that innovation in thinking, viewpoints, and law-making processes is one of the key and urgent requirements and tasks in the coming time to create stronger institutional breakthroughs. This is the key issue for us to achieve the goal of Vietnam becoming a developed country by 2045.

Mr. Ha said that at the 8th session of the 15th National Assembly, the legislative work has basically demonstrated the spirit of innovation according to the requirements. The agencies and units assigned to draft, submit, review, receive and revise draft laws and draft resolutions, the National Assembly deputies and the team of cadres and civil servants working on law-making have organized research, study and thoroughly grasped the spirit of innovation in thinking in law-making work according to Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW and the direction of the General Secretary.

The draft laws and draft resolutions must ensure the following requirements: Concise, stipulating contents within the authority, closely following reality, not being perfectionist, not hasty. Absolutely do not legalize the provisions of decrees and circulars; remove from the draft laws issues under the authority of the Government, ministries and other agencies. The provisions of the law must be clear, substantial, not general, not copying the contents already stipulated in other laws, ensuring easy understanding and easy implementation.

At the same time, for new issues that are in the process of being developed and whose practices are constantly changing and unstable, only framework regulations are provided, which are principles in nature, and assigned to the Government, ministries, and local authorities to ensure flexibility in management.

According to delegate Pham Van Thinh, member of the National Assembly's Economic Committee, according to the Government's report, there are up to 18 areas with many problems and contradictions in the legal document system.

"Development practices often go ahead, legal regulations cannot always keep up, so perfecting the law is a regular and continuous task," said Mr. Thinh.

Another urgent issue is that administrative procedure reform still faces many difficulties. He said that it is necessary to have high political determination, comprehensive digital transformation implementation and promote supervision and initiatives from socio-political organizations and businesses to ensure the sustainability of reform efforts.

"In recent times, administrative procedure reform has made remarkable progress, but there are still many shortcomings, it is not sustainable, and it is not easy to monitor and evaluate. Entering a new era - the era of national development, requires administrative procedure reform to be stronger," said Mr. Thinh.

In his speech before the National Assembly, General Secretary To Lam proposed that the National Assembly strongly innovate its legislative work. In particular, it should change the thinking of law-making in the direction of ensuring the requirements of State management while encouraging creativity, liberating all productive forces, and opening up all resources for development. Its management thinking should not be rigid, and it should definitely abandon the thinking of "if you can't manage it, ban it".

Source: https://www.baogiaothong.vn/go-diem-nghen-cua-diem-nghen-192250121090645166.htm