Simplify administrative procedures for agricultural restructuring

Saving nearly VND 219 billion

On March 16, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development held an Administrative Reform Steering Committee meeting in 2022. According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien, in 2021, Vietnam's agriculture reached many set targets.

Although agriculture has faced many difficulties and challenges for many years of infrastructure, science and technology, high-quality human resources, and public investment, small-scale agriculture has been restructuring. Agriculture still has positive changes, including the administrative reform.

In 2021, the Ministry had organized the effective implementation of the national single window mechanism at the Ministry and its units; completed construction, connected 29/29 procedures at 7 branches; received 1.4 million electronic records, and processed and approved over 1.3 million records through the National Single Window.  

Regarding the reform of administrative procedures, the Ministry has issued a list of administrative procedures relating to Agriculture and Rural Development; Review and simplify 3 administrative procedures in the field of natural disaster prevention and control; Update on the software the regulations related to business activities under the management function of the Ministry with 159 regulations on administrative procedures, 17 regulations on reporting regime, 423 regulations on regulatory requirements, 227 regulations on standards and regulations, 1,768 regulations on specialized inspection.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has also proposed a plan to reduce and simplify regulations related to business activities 429/2,559 administrative procedures, reaching 16.76%; Reduce compliance costs associated with the Ministry's activities by 13.2%, saving nearly VND 219 billion; Proposing to amend, supplement and remove 44 legal documents with provisions related to business activities.

The Ministry has promulgated the Implementation Plan of the Scheme on the renovation of the implementation of the National Single Window mechanism in handling administrative procedures; approved the list of integrated online public services, provided on the Ministry's National Public Service Portal in 2021.

Also, the organization to review and propose the decentralization plan to handle administrative procedures under the management of the Ministry reached 21.8%. Specifically: reviewing 348/348 administrative procedures; proposing to simplify 24 administrative procedures; offering decentralization of 52 administrative procedures; does not recommend decentralization of 272 administrative procedures.

In building e-Government and digital government, the Ministry has constructed and completed the Ministry's e-Government Architecture version 2.0; Completed the construction of the Ministry's reporting information system, connecting with the Government's reporting information system; Implemented Digital Transformation according to Decision No. 749/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister;

Upgrade the Ministry's Public Service Portal and the Ministry's electronic single window information System software to meet the requirements of Decree No. 61/2018/ND-CP and related documents.

The Ministry has integrated the specialized digital signature solution of the Government Cipher Board into specialized processing software for business processing units; The Ministry's online public service portal has built 26 public services at level 3.4. By now, more than 13,000 applications have been processed.

Administrative reform still has some shortcomings and limitations that need to be overcome. The direction and administration of administrative reform have not been carried out regularly and continuously at several agencies and units; progress of some legal documents is still slow, some contents on administrative procedure reform are still slow to meet the set requirements; Information technology infrastructure, information safety and security of agencies and units of the Ministry have not been synchronized.

Administrative reform for agricultural restructuring

At the meeting, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien emphasized the importance of the business system. In the context of slow technological innovation and little capital, if businesses, tiny and medium-sized enterprises invest in agriculture, are not interested, agriculture will be challenging to develop.

"The current administrative order and procedures still have many problems. Our responsibility to businesses and people is to give specific instructions, not to let businesses and people lose time in the context of the complicated Covid-19 epidemic," said Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien.

In addition, leaders of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the reform of non-business units is essential to increase competitiveness and improve efficiency.

"If high-quality resources can be gathered, then the growth engine for agriculture will be huge," affirmed the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will innovate in the direction of administrative reform, associated with improving the roles and responsibilities of the heads of agencies and units in the organization to perform each assigned task of administrative reform; To step up the inspection, evaluation, and grading of the implementation of the administrative reform of agencies and units; information, propaganda, dissemination, and mastery of administrative reform tasks to officers, civil servants, and public employees.

Besides, the Ministry strengthens the survey of organizations' satisfaction, people, and businesses with the administrative agencies of the Ministry; Organize the effective implementation of tasks of the National Single Window and ASEAN Single Window; Building electronic ISO book of ministries' agencies; maintaining and improving the quality management system ISO 9001:2015 of the Ministry, agencies, and units under the Ministry; Concentrating financial resources to ensure the implementation of the administrative reform plan tasks in 2022.

Along with that, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will continue to develop and complete the legal framework to promote the construction and development of e-Government and digital government; establish policies and legal regulations in agriculture to encourage people and businesses to use and provide digital services; Completing the integration of online public services at levels 3 and 4 into the National Public Service Portal.

"To enable to build an industrialized and modernized country, especially in the context that agriculture plays the role of a foundation and a pillar, if we don't remove obstacles to administrative reform, restructuring will difficult to achieve the set goals," emphasized Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien.