Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Member of the Standing Committee, Deputy Secretary General, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Distinguished participants!

Ladies and gentlemen! Good moring, Xin Chao!

On behalf of UNDP, it is my great pleasure to attend the workshop on public procurement from business perspective today.

Transparency and digitalization of public procurement, including in the health sector have become a top priority of the Vietnamese Government to ensure sustainable development goals. This is even more critical in the context of Covid-19 pandemic for effective and efficient response to the crisis and for speedy economic recovery.

I am delighted that findings of the draft survey report to be presented today will provide recommendations for the Government and businesses on how to move forward with this important agenda. The report is conducted as part of the PAPI programme which is co-funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The purpose of the report is to understand how businesses have perceived and experienced public health procurement and dispute resolution from governance and public service provision angles. From then, policy actions are suggested for central and local governments on capacity building and developing innovative tools/mechanisms for effective monitoring of public health procurement and dispute resolution.

After this opening session, we will hear the research team’s presentation on survey results which interesting recommendations. However, I would like to highlight some key messages from UNDP

• i. open and transparent public procurement systems are a strategic tool, not only in preventing corruption but for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as they are a prerequisite of delivering medical goods, water services, quality education infrastructure, access to justice and sustainable infrastructure. Successful experiences around the world demonstrate that open data, e-procurement, citizen engagement and collective action by the private sector can strengthen the integrity and efficiency of public spending.
• ii. the ensure effective and trusted procurement systems, the importance of greater transparency and access to information of standard bidding documents, based on international standards, is fundamental. This should be done through  the Procurement Newspaper, the National Procurement System, and information portals of ministries and provinces;
• iii. Viet Nam should be publishing open data based on international standards of Open Contracting Data (OCD)  and it should be machine readable, searchable by various categories, and can be disaggregated. This allows oversight institutions and citizens to e use of artificial intelligence to detect both positive (cost savings) and negative (corrupt practices) patterns. 
• iv. Ensuring integrity and corruption prevention of government contracts through greater disclosure on issues of conflict of interests and asset declarations; and reinforcing codes of conduct or ethical guidelines, especially in contracting and sourcing goods and services.
• v. Local authorities should collaborate with civic groups and business associations to increase their knowledge on how to utilize contracting data for impact and include citizen feedback loops and complain mechanisms.

These recommendations are aligned with UNDP’s Resource Guide for building transparent and open public procurement systems for achieving the SDGs in ASEAN. Accordingly, five components of transparent and open public procurement ecosystems include (i) transparent and open public procurement institutions; (ii) citizen participation, monitoring and reporting; (iii) private sector engagement; (iv) collaboration with oversight institutions; (v) inclusive and fair environment for public procurement.

As businesses play a key role in promoting good practices in corporate governance, transparency, and business integrity, I hope that the successful launch of the report today and fruitful discussions at the workshop will create the foundation for future interventions with active participation of the business community to help build an effective, digitalized, and transparent public procurement system in Viet Nam.

For many years, UNDP is proud to work with Vietnamese stakeholders in both public and private sector to strengthen good governance in Viet Nam. This is one of four priorities under our new country programme document for 2022-2026. Over the next five years, we will continue to provide technical assistance through various programmes and projects to help strengthen legal and regulatory frameworks and build capacities for Vietnamese stakeholders. I am pleased to inform you that our good works with VCCI on improving the role of businesses in promoting transparency in public health procurement will continue under a new project on strengthening the implementation of the United Nations Convention on Anti-corruption to be launched later this year. Beside these policy and technical advices, I am proud to share that UNDP is also striving to provide direct support to the health sector in affordable, quality, transparent, quick, and timely procurement of medicines and medical commodities in parallel with strengthening capacity of the health sector in pooled procurement. We hope this direct support will be taken by the MOH soon in the context of medicine stockouts happening widely in the country and we would be able to help directly improve safety and transparency in health procurement as we have been helping many other countries recently.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank colleagues at the Legal Department of VCCI for close collaboration with UNDP in conducting the research. We also would like to thank the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia for generous support to UNDP and VCCI.

I wish you all health, happiness, success, and a joyful workshop!

Thank you. Xin cam on!