On 16th August, 2017, EuroCham has attended the first meeting of the Advisory Council of the Administrative Procedures Reform (“The Council”) chaired by H.E. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Hanoi. It was EuroCham’s great honour to have the Chamber’s representative, Vice-Chairman, Mr. Gellert Horvath to participate and raise the voice of the European business community in the meeting.
The Council is in charge of advising and proposing regulatory reform relating to business activities and people’s life as well as evaluating the implementation of administrative procedures reform in ministries, branches and localities to the Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. The Council works on the principle of volunteering, promoting personal responsibility of the Chairman, the Vice Chairman and council members and acts through the organization of meetings, conferences, seminars.
During the meeting, EuroCham also took an opportunity to update the Prime Minister and colleagues on its activities, including promotion of the EU- Vietnam Free Trade Agreement in Brussels in September and hand in the Whitebook 2017 containing EuroCham’s trade and investment recommendations.
EuroCham Executive Board and members are strongly motivated and encouraged by The Prime Minister’s encouragement of EuroCham’s advocacy efforts in further promoting and preparation for implementing the FTA and calling other partnering chamber for facilitating FTAs with Vietnam. EuroCham also contributed many sectoral recommendations to the Prime Minister, covering from Customs & Taxation, Food & Agriculture, Legal Framework, Pharmaceuticals, etc.for improvement of administrative reforms in Vietnam and the comments were well received.
After the meeting, EuroCham also met with Mr. Mai Tien Dung, the Chairman of the Office of Government to propose setting up a framework that allows more regular dialogues between EuroCham’s 16 Sector Committees and the Office of the Government for a more closely discussion to facilitate the implementation of EVFTA and improve the business environment in Vietnam. EuroCham Advocacy team will further follow-up and inform the Sector Committees on the progress of the meeting results as well as on upcoming Council’s activities.
The Council actively co-operates with other government agencies to research, discuss and propose regulatory reform initiatives as well as evaluate the implementation of administrative procedures reform.
Recently, H.E. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has also issued Decision 1180/TTg assigning the lead drafting agencies for submission of proposals for the reform program of laws, ordinances in 2017 and development program in 2018. More details can be found HERE