Hanoi (VNA)ꦫ – The northern province of Hung Yen jumped 25 places in the 2022 Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) rankings, standing 14th among the 63 provinces and centrally-run cities nationwide, and fifth among the 11 in the Red River Delta.

Strong leap in ranking

According to the 2022 PCI report recently unveiled by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Hung Yen scored 67.91 points, rising 4.15 points and 25 places from the previous year, to the 14th position nationwide and fifth in the Red River Delta. It has returned to the top 30 best performers in this regard after 10 years. PCI results from 2020 to 2022 have demonstrated a significant improvement in the province’s governance quality, rising from the 53rd in 2020 to the 39th in 2021 and the 14th in 2022. Notable improvements could be seen in the sub-indexes of access to land (up 0.69 point and 36 places), proactivity (up 0.23 point and 19 places), informal charges (up 1.05 points and 41 places), and law and order (up 1.1 points and 33 places). Among them, the access to land sub-index of Hung Yen ranks fifth nationwide, after Dong Thap, Thai Nguyen, Lam Dong, and Ba Ria - Vung Tau provinces. Local efforts to better the economic governance quality have proved fruitful and won the recognition by enterprises and investors. Meanwhile, the sub-indexes of entry costs, time costs, and labour policy slightly decreased from 2021, requiring further improvement by authorities to meet the business community’s growing demand.

Efforts yield fruit

Hung Yen has shown strong efforts when succeeding in raising its position in the PCI rankings by 39 places between 2020 and 2022. To become an attractive destination for domestic and foreign investors, the provincial People’s Committee issued Directive No. 12/CT-CTUBND on effectively implementing solutions and improving cadres and civil servants’ sense of responsibility, attitude, and performance quality in order to promote the PCI. In particular, land-related procedures have been continually been streamlined. For example, while those for adjusting the land rent duration are now handled within seven days instead of 15 days in the past, the settlement of those for land hand-over and rent were cut down to 20 days from 30 days. Improvements in industrial park infrastructure are also among the pluses in the eyes of investors to Hung Yen. In 2022, the province handed over more than 612ha of land to developers of industrial park infrastructure so as to gear up technical facilities for welcoming enterprises. In addition, local authorities have also paid attention to improve the sub-index of informal charges, considered a lingering major barrier to investors. The sub-index increased from 6.63 points in 2021 to 7.68 points in 2022 - the seventh position nationwide. This result was attributable to the province’s concreate actions, not only in issuing documents, diretives , and conclusions but also in assigning tasks to authorities at each level and to each sector. Hung Yen identified the creation of an open, transparent, and friendly investment and business climate for all economic sectors as an important work to contribute to socio-economic development. The improved position in the 2022 PCI rankings is considered an illustration of the province’s positive socio-economic panorama and also a stepping stone for local development this year. In 2022, Hung Yen posted year-on-year growth of 13.41% in its gross regional domestic product (GRDP), the fifth highest in Vietnam and exceeding the target of 7%. Its budget revenue was estimated at more than 51.2 trillion VND (nearly 2.2 billion USD), equivalent to over 262% of last year’s target. The province attracted 77 new investment projects worth about 212.5 million USD and 21.4 trillion VND. Total retail sales of goods and consumer service revenue topped 60.9 trillion VND, up 61.1%, while exports brought home 6.3 billion USD, representing 112.5% of the target. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.35% from 2021, statistics show./.