Hanoi falls two places in competitiveness ranking

VietNamNet Bridge – The central city of Da Nang once again tops the 2009 provincial competitiveness index (PCI) ranking.

Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of VCCI hands over certificates to the localities with good PCI

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) on January 14 released the report on provincial competitiveness index, PCI 2009.  It gives the first and the second positions to Da Nang City in the central region and Binh Duong province in the south.

 

Meanwhile, in the north, Lao Cai province has unseated Vinh Phuc province to appear in the top three localities which have favorable business environments.

 

This is for the second consecutive year Da Nang gets the top spot. Binh Duong has topped the ranking in the first three years since VCCI first announced PCI.

 

Meanwhile, it is bad news for Hanoi and HCM City.  Hanoi fell two grades to the 33rd, while HCM City fell three grades to the 16^th.

 

The 2009 ranking shows a lot of changes in comparison with the 2008 ranking, when Binh Dinh, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Tien Giang and Bac Ninh replaced the high positions of Long An, Ben Tre, An Giang and Thua Thien-Hue in top 10 provinces.

 

Three provinces Ca Mau, Dien Bien and Long An have been recognized as making the biggest progress in improving business environments.

 

Commenting on the 2009 ranking, VCCI said that there has been considerable improvement in the competitiveness and management work of all localities in the country.

 

This explains why the number of provinces ranked “very good”, “good” and “fairly good” are higher than previous years. Meanwhile, the number of localities put in “medium” and “low” groups has decreased from 34 to 10 provinces.

 

VCCI said that other indices such as the market admission fee, land access fee, expenses on time, labor quality and legal framework, have also shown considerable improvement. However, a problem has arisen that the indexes on transparency in management and the dynamism of the local authorities has tended to decrease.

 

Meanwhile, according to Tran Huu Huynh, head of the Legal Department of VCCI and a member of the PCI survey team, transparency is considered the most important index that decides ranking.

 

Huynh noted that the 2009 PCI has been decided based on the quality of the management work undertaken by local authorities, not based on legal documents and policies.

 

“We do not care about the factors such as the geographical positions, infrastructure and market scale to rank localities,” he said.

 

The survey team said that the labor force should be seen by localities as the most important matter now. 1,100 businesses out of 6,981 polled private businesses said that labor force is now their biggest problem.

 

VietNamNet/VNE

 

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