Quang Ninh tops Vietnam’s provincial economic governance for third straight year

The rankings were announced on May 5 by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in its annual provincial competitiveness index (PCI) report.

First and second positions remained unchanged from the previous year while Vinh Long made a strong rise from number eight to number three in 2019.

Bac Ninh, a major industrial centre in northern Vietnam, also made a big jump to fourth position from number 15 a year earlier while the southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City fell out of the top ten to number 14.

Da Nang and Hanoi remained in the 10 best-performing localities, ranking 5th and 9th position respectively.

According to the VCCI, this year saw the highest median score since the report was first launched in 2005, indicating that the difference in the quality of economic governance between provinces and centrally-governed cities is narrowing.

In mid-2019 when the survey was conducted, more than half of respondents stated that they have plans to expand their business in the next two years.

However, the VCCI noted that there is still much room for provincial governments to make further improvement, especially in information transparency, bidding in public procurement and administrative reform.

The latest PCI rankings were compiled based on a survey of 12,429 enterprises, including 1,583 foreign-invested ones, across 63 provinces and centrally-governed cities.