Delivered at the signing ceremony of the Project "Technical Assistance to Business Registration in Vietnam", Hanoi, August 07, 2008.
07/08/2008 :: Excellency Mr Truong Van Doan, Vice Minister of Planning and Investment
Ms. Nilgün Taş, UNIDO Representative
Dr. Nguyen Van Trung, Director General for Agency for SME Development, ASMED
Distinguish guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
• I’m glad to be here with you today, representing the Government of Norway, to sign the Project Document on "Technical Assistance to Business Registration in Vietnam".
• One and half years ago, Vietnam became the 150th member of the WTO. With great satisfaction, Norway sees the country’s commitment in incorporating the WTO obligations into the national action plan. Vietnamese Parliament and authorities are adapting laws and regulations at high pace and till now according to the timetable. The challenge ahead is now to implement them. This requires implementation capacity and appropriate facilities.
• Norway (represented by the Embassy) is committed to continue its support to Business Registration for another 3 years. We are convinced that this will help the responsible authorities to successfully implement its obligations and as soon as possible benefit from the advantages of the WTO accession. WTO-membership will further require reform of the legal framework for the economy and therefore improve the investment climate. Strong signals of that kind are especially necessary at times like now, where the economy is facing difficulties.
• As mentioned in the Vietnam Strategy launched during the visit of the President of Vietnam to the Royal Kingdom of Norway in June, the excellent bilateral relations between our countries is ascertained and the readiness of Norway to continue to assist Vietnam in its development confirmed. As Vietnam will soon reach “middle income country status”, the support of Norway to Vietnam will focus more on technical cooperation between universities, companies and other elements of the civil societies. This agreement is a perfect example of such cooperation.
• Concerning the project, which will be signed today, its aim is to improve the business environment for enterprise start up and operations. This will create an enabling environment for the private sector development and public administration reform.
• This project is additionally important as it places itself within the “One- UN” initiative, a joint action programme between the Government of Vietnam and all 14 resident UN organizations in Vietnam. The Government Norway, as one of the key donors is strongly supporting the idea of an increased coordination of the international agencies.
• To conclude, I agree with our colleague at UNIDO that, let's work together to support National Business Registry so that it will be able to ‘facilitate on-line information sharing between 63 BROs, MPI, GDT, MPS and GSO, reduce the duplicate use of business names and offer web-enabled services, including optional on-line submission of registration applications. We are very much looking forward to a fruitful cooperation.
Xin cam on!