PM chairs meeting of Government’s Administrative Reform Steering Committee. Photo: Baochinhphu

The meeting, held in-person in Hanoi and connected to the 63 provinces and centrally-run cities, aims to assess the implementation of administrative procedure reform associated with digital transformation, serving people and businesses, and to announce the 2022 Satisfaction Index of Public Administration Services (SIPAS) and the 2022 Public Administration Reform (PAR) Index.

In his opening remarks, PM Pham Minh Chinh, who is head of the committee, stressed that administrative reform is one of the three strategic breakthrough tasks, which have received great attention from the Party and State.

Over the past time, with joint efforts of ministries, sectors, localities, and the steering committee, administrative reform has been implemented drastically and concertedly in the fields of law-making, administrative procedures, organisation of the state apparatus, civil service, public finance, and digital transformation and e-Government and digital Government building.

The work has gained important achievements, contributing to national development and increasing the validity and effectiveness of all-level authorities’ direction and administration.

However, there remain a lot of obstacles and bottlenecks hampering investment in production and business development, and affecting the mobilisation of resources for development.

The Government leader requested the steering committee, ministries, sectors, and localities to focus on assessing and clarifying the results, shortcomings and weaknesses to have appropriate response measures.

He asked committee members to clearly define their roles and responsibilities for the administrative reform of the country, their ministries and sectors.

PM Chinh, who is also head of the committee, said with the direction of the Party Central Committee, National Assembly, Government and Prime Minister, there have been positive changes in the reform of institutions, administrative procedures, and the organisation of State administrative apparatus. This is also the case with the civil service regime, public finance, and e-Government building. Among them, institutional, administrative and civil service regime reforms have shown significant improvements, contributing to the country's socio-economic development.

He asked members of the committee to work closely with ministries, agencies and People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities to perform assigned tasks. The goal is to advance administrative reform, improve the business environment, and create great conditions for citizens and businesses.

The committee reported that the Government and PM have issued resolutions, directives, and official dispatches to accelerate the disbursement of public investment, improve the business environment, streamline administrative procedures, and strengthen discipline and order.

Since 2021, about 2,500 business regulations have been cut and simplified. Ministries have streamlined 437 administrative procedures related to citizen documents. Twenty-one out of 22 ministries and 61 out of 63 provinces and centrally-run cities have published lists of internal administrative procedures.

Several important regulations and policies related to public service and civil servants have been issued.

As many as 35 out of 53 essential public services are supplied online. All 63 localities have completed the connection and data sharing between the national population database and the public service portal. Over 84.7 million chip-based ID cards have been issued while more than 45 million VneID accounts have been activated./.