Website answers corporate queries
HCM CITY (May 22, 2003) — The municipal government on Tuesday launched a website to help answer questions from businesses and resolve difficulties facing those businesses.
The deputy chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) in HCM City, Sesto E. Vecchi, posted the first question on the website to municipal authorities, marking the launch of the website.
Soon afterwards several firms involved in the electronics, construction services and foreign freight sectors raised questions about: taxation and customs regulations; procedures for establishing representative offices in foreign countries; and, incentives available to encourage overseas Vietnamese (Viet kieu) to invest in Viet Nam.
The businesses should receive answers to their questions within five days. During the one-month trial period, nearly 200 city businesses will participate in the programme. The programme will then be expanded to allow all of the city’s 30,000 businesses to converse with local authorities.
The website, at http://www.doithoaidn.hochiminhcity.gov.vn will help to provide businesses with answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. This will enable them to operate more effectively, while also raising the productivity of State bodies.
During the trial period, the city’s departments of: Planning and Investment; Trade; Architecture and Planning; Science, Technology and the Environment; Construction; Culture and Information; Housing and Land Administration; and Taxation, will take part in the programme, providing answers for local businesses.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the deputy chair of the HCM City People’s Committee, Nguyen Thien Nhon, said that the city would do its best to maintain the website as a contribution to the city’s plan to develop the local IT industry between 2001 and 2005.
He also expressed his hope that the website would eventually resolve some of the difficulties facing businesses, helping them to boost their trade and production.
The website was designed during 2002 by the Financing and Promoting Technology Corporation (FPT), one of the city’s major providers of IT services. — VNS
