As many as 17 out of 19 ministries and ministry-level agencies have provided online public services at levels three and four, while 58 out of 63 cities and provinces have supplied 13,830 public services on the Internet.

Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh (centre) addresses the meeting

The figures were reported by Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Trong Thua at a meeting of the Government’s Steering Committee for Administrative Reform in Hanoi on February 8, which was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh who is head of the committee.

Thua said that in 2017, the number of overdue documents guiding the implementation of laws and ordinances reduced 41.67 percent year on year.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Justice Tran Tien Dung said that last year, the Ministry of Justice inspected 5,848 legal documents and discovered 157 documents violating laws in terms of content and issuance authority.

At the same time, Vice Chairman of the Government Office Nguyen Xuan Thanh said that more than 5,000 administrative procedures have been simplified, while 24 conditional business sectors have been reduced and many business conditions for many sectors have been cut down.

Thanh added that the ministry is processing legal documents to erase nearly 3,000 business conditions to ensure the implementation of Investment Law.

Deputy Minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan said that the World Bank raise the ranking of Vietnam’s business environment by 14 places.

However, the Deputy Justice Minister pointed out that the number of illegal documents in 2017 increased by 21 percent. He said that one of the major tasks of the ministry in 2018 is dealing with 83 such documents.

Deputy PM Truong Hoa Binh held that administrative reform in some sectors is incoherent, while the apparatus of many State agencies operated ineffectively. He asserted that the problem is rooted from stagnant mindset as well as weak capacity of many State officials.

He asked ministries, sectors and localities to continue promoting the responsibilities of the top officials in implementing and popularising resolutions and policies of the Party, National Assembly, Government on administrative reform.

He suggested that the administrative reform in ministries should be linked with that in localities to ensure consistency and synchronicity, while strengthening the decentralisation of power.

Meanwhile, it is necessary to completing institutions, mechanisms and regulations to facilitate the development and application of science and technology, particularly information and communication technology in various sectors to improve productivity and quality as well as competitiveness of the economy, he added.-VNA