USAID/VNCI II Monthly Report August 2012

The project document between OOG and VNCI has been approved by OOG's management, paving the way for VNCI and APCA to work together in summarizing activities undertaken over the past five years and preparing necessary procedures for the potential transfer of the function to the MoJ and ultimately for VNCI's program closure. This development is significant, as it indicates a shift in the initiative's focus towards supporting APCA's transition to the MoJ. In light of the potential transfer of APCA to the MoJ, USAID/VNCI is facilitating APCA management team's efforts to identify and plan for key challenges and opportunities that will arise from operating within the MoJ. The principal outcomes of these discussions will help form a strategy and proposal for the Minister of Justice on where would be the best place for the APCA Office within the MoJ structure. USAID/VNCI will provide further support to APCA on this matter with international consultancy from Scott Jacobs, scheduled to visit Hanoi from September 17-30, 2012. The Government of Vietnam has recently passed Decree No. 46/2012/ND-CP, which amends and supplements Decree No. 35/2003/ND-CP. This decree abolishes the procedure for granting certificates of meeting required conditions of preventing and fighting fire, replacing it with a notification scheme where individuals or businesses are only required to notify the authority with relevant evidence when their buildings meet the conditions of fire preventing and fighting set by the government. This reform was part of Project 30's recommendation package that was passed by GoV under Resolution 25/NQ-CP in June 2010. The World Bank has committed to providing technical assistance to support APCA in researching reform initiatives. A delegation led by the WB met with APCA to discuss the possibility of including some of the AP reform topics under Decision No. 263 in the World Bank's EMCC program as triggers for policy actions by GoV. The areas of interest to the WB include business registration, tax, customs, and public spending. The WB is committed to supporting APCA in providing technical input for reform, and APCA has agreed to work with the WB team in the future and seek WB support in prioritizing AP reform topics in the coming years. The ACAPR and Communications team has made significant progress in promoting AP reform ideas. About 40 individual and 9 group papers on AP reform ideas were selected out of 1,078 that were shortlisted in a previous phase. APCA is planning to invite independent external experts to review and rank the shortlisted papers. The communications team had a meeting with the organizing committee to discuss possible sponsorship packages and prizes for the winning papers. The Regulatory Reform and Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) team has also made significant progress. A RIA and policy-making contribution workshop for editors and reporters of Sai Gon Times in Ho Chi Minh City was held on August 24, 2012. The workshop was attended by over 30 participants, who expressed sincere thanks for introducing them to useful policy-making tools developed by RIA. The USAID/VNCI team received a number of requests from Sai Gon Times reporters and editors for inputs on specific issues/articles in which they plan to use the RIA approach to criticize existing and upcoming policies and regulations. The Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) survey has reached an important milestone, with responses from domestic firms passing the previous target of 7,000. The PCI-FDI survey is moving at a slower pace, reaching almost 800 completed questionnaires. In the coming two weeks, the PCI survey team will focus on improving this rate through telephone interviews. The PCI 2011 diagnostic workshops have also been held, with a workshop in Bac Kan on August 21, 2012. The workshop was chaired by the Vice Director of DPI Bac Kan and funded by the IFAD's Pro-poor Partnership for Agroforestry development (3PAD) Project. The workshop aimed at raising awareness of PCI and focusing on the importance of good governance among civil servants at the district level. However, most of the 26 participants came from different line departments and were already quite familiar with PCI, indicating that the province may have a limited interest in improving their PCI standing and the conditions that feed into the PCI ranking.