Attending the announcement ceremony were Chairman of VCCI Pham Tan Cong; US Ambassador to Vietnam Marc E. Knapper; Research Director of the Provincial Green Index Initiative Project, Professor Edmund Malesky; Deputy General Secretary, Head of Legal Department, VCCI, Director of Provincial Green Index Initiative Project Dau Anh Tuan. On the side of Bac Giang province, there was Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Mai Son.

The PCI announcement ceremony was an annual event of VCCI with support from USAID. This was the 19th consecutive year VCCI had implemented this initiative to promptly reflect the movements of Vietnam's business environment, continue to convey the voice of the domestic and foreign business community on the quality of economic management of 63 provinces and cities from practical experiences of businesses.

2023 was also the second year that VCCI coordinated with USAID to deploy PGI to evaluate and rank localities on environmentally friendly criteria. This index reflected the level of information technology application, management capacity and environmental response of businesses, and the level of concern of provinces and cities across the country on environmental-related issues.

The PCI and PGI 2023 report was built from feedback from 10,676 enterprises, including 9,127 domestic private enterprises and 1,549 foreign invested enterprises (FDI) operating in Vietnam.

According to the 2023 PCI report, Bac Giang province ranked 4th in the top 30 provinces and cities with the best operating quality in 2023. Bac Giang scored 69.75 points on a 100-point scale, ranking 4^th. Quang Ninh province (71.25 points) continued to be the leading province, Long An province (70.94 points) was second and Hai Phong city (70.34) was third.

Through analyzing 10 PCI component indexes, Bac Giang had the highest score in the legal institutions and security and order index with 7.90 points. There are 3 increasing indexes being Market entry (7.05 points), time costs (7.71 points), and business support policies (7.24 points). Some index scores decreased such as: Access to land, transparency, fair competition, dynamism of the provincial government, labor training, etc.

According to the ceremony program, VCCI announced PGI and some analysis results on the quality of environmental governance at the provincial level from the perspective of businesses in Vietnam. It was known that PGI was built to provide input from business practices to support provincial and city governments in environmental management, balancing the goals of economic growth and environmental sustainability.

PGI gathered and conveyed the voice of the business community on the quality of environmental governance to governments at all levels. PGI was built to measure the quality of environmental governance on the basis of environmental policy documents and legal regulations regulating the relationship between provincial governments and businesses. This index included 4 component indexes made up of 46 indicators assessing environmental quality and governance effectiveness of provinces and cities with the maximum total score of 40 points. Quang Ninh had the highest total score of all 4 component indexes, leading the country with 26 points. The next positions were Da Nang (25.66 points), Dong Nai (24.71 points), Hung Yen (24.59 points) and Ho Chi Minh city (24.2 points).

Speaking at the announcement ceremony, VCCI Chairman Pham Tan Cong said that in 2023, localities across the country had actively implemented plans and actions to implement the socio-economic development recovery program. PCI and PGI survey results showed that the quality of economic governance at the provincial level continued to improve over time. Many provinces continued to maintain and have new initiatives in improving the business environment.

Notably, provinces in the bottom group were rising strongly by taking advantage of the "late mover advantage" when actively learning and applying successful lessons from the group of provinces with higher governance quality. Business support had positive changes. Most of the evaluation indicators on the implementation of business support policies in 2023 improved compared to 2022.

Mr. Pham Tan Cong emphasized that the Government was especially interested in unlocking resources, creating the most favorable conditions for the business community to develop, and promoting socio-economic development throughout the country. With that important meaning, the Government was currently continuing to promote institutional reform and administrative procedures to promptly remove barriers to support businesses. Ministries, sectors and localities also paid special attention to reviewing and implementing appropriate mechanisms and policies in accordance with the law to help businesses develop sustainably.

On this occasion, VCCI President and USAID Director awarded medals to 10 provinces and cities with the best achievements in implementing PCI in 2023 (including Bac Giang province) and PGI in 2023./.