Hanoi (VNA) - A special working group in charge of boosting reformsand improving the business climate will be set up this year, Chairman of theGovernment Office Mai Tien Dung said at a meeting on January 2 to discuss plansto simplify business procedures in 2020-25.

The group will keep an eye on reforms made by ministries and localities andremove any difficulties they face.

The group is part of the Prime Minister’s draft decision on cutting andsimplifying business regulations in 2020-25, which would be issued in February,Dung said.

He said the draft targets to reduce at least 20 percent of the documents issuedby the Prime Minister and the Government and cut at least 20 percent ofregulatory compliance costs every year in the next five years.

The issuance of new legal documents, especially ministerial-level circulars, willbe put under tight management to prevent new documents from pushing up costsfor firms, he said.

It is necessary to restrict the issuance of circulars and gradually movetowards a system that no longer requires circulars to implement laws, he said.

He added that tools to calculate regulatory compliance costs will be developedto measure the quality of reforms.

The focus for 2020 will be reviewing and amending 25 overlaps andinconsistencies in existing legal documents recently pointed out by the VietnamChamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the Central Institute for EconomicManagement (CIEM), he said.

Phan Duc Hieu, CIEM’s Deputy Director, said that it is critical to revampGovernment agencies' approach to management to truly cut costs for businesses.

Hieu said that theGovernment should issue fewer and "smarter" documents.

According to Dau Anh Tuan, head of the Legal Department under the VCCI,enhanced cooperation between ministries to prevent overlaps and inconsistenciesamong legal documents is vital.

Vietnam is embarking a more radical reform period, so the work will be verydifficult but it is a must, Dung said./.