Hanoi (VNA) – The index for administrative procedurecompliance costs (APCI) was released for the first time on August 17, assessingthe actual expenses businesses and organisations have to incur in order toadhere to existing administrative procedures.

The APCI report, announced by the PrimeMinister’s Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform, marked twoyears since the current Government took office with the resolve of improvingthe business climate to attract more domestic and foreign investment, andpromote Vietnam’s stature in the international arena.

The report covers eight groups of importantadministrative procedures for companies, namely starting business and businessregistration, taxation, investment, licence and practicing certificate,customs, land, environment, and construction.

In total, 3,000 companies across all 63provinces and cities were interviewed about their compliance costs during thelast half of 2017.

Accordingly, taxation procedures rank first inthe APCI which costs businesses only 73,750 VND (3.17 USD) to comply with.Companies also need only 2.9 hours to carry out one taxation procedure onaverage.

The compliance cost for taxation procedure isequivalent to 0.58 percent of the average cost of the eight surveyed groups ofprocedures (about 12.7 million VND or 546.6 USD) and only 0.1 percent of thatof construction procedures, which was the most charged grouping.

The second place belongs to starting businessand business registration procedures which cost companies 720,700 VND (31 USD)and 10.5 hours.

This group is followed by procedures relating tocustoms; land; licence, practicing certificate and business conditions;investment; and environment.

Meanwhile, enterprises have to spend up to 64.1million VND (2,758 USD) on average to adhere to construction procedures,although the time needed to deal with them is not the highest (103.9 hours).

According to the report, compliance costs alsovary across regions and localities. For example, compliance costs forconstruction procedures reaches 146.7 million VND (6,313 USD) in the northernkey economic region, but only 12.6 million VND (542.2 USD) in the southernregion. It is attributed to the different procedures carried out by localauthorities.

Minister and Chairman of the Government’s OfficeMai Tien Dung said compliance costs includes expenses in terms of time andmoney, direct and indirect expenses, as well as official and unofficialexpenses. Feedback from associations and businesses shows that these costs arevery high.

He added that the Advisory Council forAdministrative Procedure Reform will continue to hold dialogues withenterprises, collecting their opinions to offer alternative points of view fromstate agencies. He stressed that reforms must be carried out in a drastic andsynchronous fashion so that all costs can be reduced. –VNA