Điều khoản mua sắm công trong hiệp định EVFTA và những hàm ý đối với Việt Nam

TAs and any FTA that the US ever signed with other countries covered this sector, set an example for the FTAs around the world, however, did not concern the actual politics and eco- nomics between partners in these FTAs1. Steve Woolcock (2013), Policy diffusion in public pro- curement: the role of free trade agreements. The authors investigated the relationships between free trade agreements and its member states’ law system on government procurement and clarified that free trade agreements contribute to the stipulation of poli- cies and regimes of the member nations on govern- ment procurement. The drawback of the research was the lack of consideration of the differences and col- lisions between these law systems and the solutions for that issue. The drawback of the research was the lack of consideration of the differences and collisions between these law systems and the solutions for that issue2. Ranja Sengupta (2012), Government procurement in the EU-India FTA: Dangers for India. In this arti- cle, the authors defined this as the key tool to develop the country and indicated the risks of losing control over this key tool when adding the regulations on government procurement into free trade agreements and hence losing the ability to orientate the socio- economy. On the other side, the potentials and so- lutions to prevent similar issues to happen were rarely investigated and analyzed 3. Regarding the government procurement clause in EVFTA Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (2016), Rà soát pháp luật Việt Nam với các cam kết của Hiệp định thương mại tự do Việt Nam - EU về Mua sắm công. In this document, the authors compared the government procurement clause in EVFTA and Vietnam’s current legal system to point out the compatibility and emphasize the reg- ulations need to be modified. The law used in this re- search is Vietnam Law No. 43/2013/QH13 on Bid- ding (VNLB). Despite the clear structure of the anal- ysis, the research only focused on the legal side of the comparison while economic and political aspects are important as well 4. Nguyen Dinh Cung et al. (2017), Hiệp định thương mại tự do Việt Nam - EU: Tác động thể chế và điều chỉnh chính sách ở Việt Nam. This research document focused on the overall impacts of EVFTAonVietnam. It examined groups of regulations in EVFTA and then analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to de- rive several implications for Vietnam to be in the best circumstances for implementing EVFTA’s stipu- lations. Due to thewide range of research, the govern- ment procurement sector was mentioned in a short part, which cannot cover the sector sufficiently5. Bernhard Tröster et al. (2019), Combining trade and sustainability? The Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Vietnam. The research report combined the analysis of numerous clauses of EVFTA related to sustainable development and concluded that even though containing many potential benefits, EVFTA was still a challenge for Vietnam in terms of imple- mentation. However, the government procurement was not focused on the research6. Rabea Brauer, VuDangTuan, andNatalie Frey (2014), Free trade agreement between the EU and Vietnam: difficult partnership. With a skeptical viewpoint, the authors analyzed the current political institution and environment and judged that the role of the Vietnam government and state-owned enterprises in the mar- ket is dominant and may pose inadequacies to the economy. In the range of the analysis, the govern- ment procurement was not investigated properly and often, due to the concentration on the political and economic relationship between the two countries 7. Regarding thegovernmentprocurement sec- tor in Vietnam Chu Thi Thuy Chung (2016), Mua sắm công ở Việt Nam: Thực trạng và giải pháp. The research paper showed the results of the implementation of Vietnam Law No.43/2013/QH13 on Bidding after three years of operation, both optimistic and pessimistic aspects. Numerous solutions to improve the efficiency of the government procurement market in Vietnam were proposed as the current situation is not efficient. Not 1105 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 mentioning the impact of FTAs that Vietnam joined, the research only gave readers references on the do- mestic market, not the international one8. Baker, Paul et al. (2014), Sustainable impact assess- ment EU-Vietnam FTA. In this research, the authors analyzed the impact of EVFTA on Vietnam regard- ing sustainable development, including the govern- ment procurement. It is predicted that local prefer- ence policies in this sector like Vietnam can lead to the “inefficiency and corruption”. The research, on the other hand, did not cover the analysis of inefficiency and corruption, as well as factors affecting the EVFTA implementation of Vietnam9. Do Kien Vong (2019), Quản lý nhà nước về đấu thầu mua sắm công ở Việt Nam. In this doctoral thesis, the authors investigated the current management system of tendering activities in Vietnam between govern- ment authorities and suppliers. Therewas also a chap- ter mentioning systemized solutions to promote effi- ciency and transparency in this activity of Vietnam. Nevertheless, none of the contents mentioned the po- tentials of this sector under the cooperation with for- eign countries 10. Tran Thi Dong Anh (2009), Pháp luật về đấu thầu điện tử của một số nước, kinh nghiệm và khả năng áp dụng ở Việt Nam. The document investigated the experience of countries around the world regarding e-procurement and then analyzed the compatibility to apply in Vietnam via the evaluation of the cur- rent tenderingmanagement system. The authors con- cluded that even though the e-procurement is very potential, there shall be challenges that require high efforts to overcome. As stated in the subject, the research did not pay enough attention to other is- sues but e-procurement, which means the context of e-procurement was not comprehensively investi- gated 11. Vu Thi Hien (2017), Việt Nam hướng tới tham gia Hiệp địnhmua sắm chính phủ (GPA) củaWTO: những thách thức từ góc độ minh bạch hóa. The authors in this article examined the ability of Vietnam to join GPA by comparing the current management system and the standards of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The main principle analyzed in this article is transparency, which is also one important rule in EVFTA. However, many other essential aspects such as the rule of fairness, etc. were not included in this research12. None of the above research analyzed and showed the big picture of how the regulations of EVFTA on the government procurement shall influence Vietnam and what the possible measures to take advantage of EVFTA on the foundation of Vietnam’s current per- formance in this sector are. These are the expected outcomes that the article provides. METHODOLOGY The research method used in the article is mainly Qualitative and Descriptive. The article collects, sum- marizes, and analyzes the data from two sources: Secondary data: The article summarizes the data taken fromvarious trustworthy sources: ranking table of In- ternational Telecommunication Union; data collected by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam; and re- ports from the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Planning and Investment. The article also uses the information from the trustworthy sources, namely books, newspapers, magazines, legal articles, reports, and research papers in Vietnam and the world. In-depth interview: The article collects the consul- tancy from (1) Dr. Pham Van Chat, Senior Lecturer of Ministry of Industry and Trade on international economic integration, and (2) MSc. Pham Binh An, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Centre of Interna- tional Integration Support. The two experts above are the experienced professionals in issues related to the international integration process of Vietnam. RESULTS AND FINDINGS EVFTA and the Government procurement clause in EVFTA Vietnam and the European Union first established diplomatic relations on November 28th 1990. Be- fore 2000, in 1992, 1995, 1997, three mutual- benefit agreements was adopted, “Textile Agreement”, “Vietnam-EC Cooperation Framework Agreement” and “ASEAN-EU Cooperation Agreement” respec- tively have improved the opportunities for both gov- ernments in an effort to develop the economy, sta- bilize the political institution and construct better strategies to effectively integrate to the international environment. After 2000, numerous events were held to enhance this trade relation. The most remark- able milestone under this endeavor is the initiation of EVFTA negotiation in 2012. And EVFTA is consid- ered the most comprehensive bilateral agreement that Vietnam has ever concluded. On December 1st , 2015, the EU and Vietnam offi- cially announced that the negotiation course was con- cluded after a long way of negotiations with 13 official rounds. On those foundations, February 1st , 2016, the text of EVFTA was publicly accessible on the official website of the Directorate-General For Trade. Both parties agreed with the full text of EVFTA and EVIPA 1106 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 and officially signed on June 30th , 2019. The cere- mony of signing the agreement became the next big milestone in the trade relation between EU and Viet- nam as well as an opening stage for them to go faster into the global economic integration. On Febru- ary 12th, 2020, the European Parliament give consent (63.33% voting for consent) to EVFTA.Themain con- tents of EVFTA covered many aspects in the trade relation of the two states including tariff elimination under a preferential schedule, rules of origin, procedu- ral simplification and transparency, buyers protecting, and sustainable development. All of these chapters in EVFTA mainly aim to promote transparency, fair competitiveness, and to create an ideal business envi- ronment for companies from the EU and Vietnam. It also gives Vietnam a great chance to expand the busi- ness with the world, to reduce social issues like unem- ployment, to revise the current politics and institution if necessary. Most of the regulations on the government procure- ment in EVFTA are derived and based on the text of GPA (1984) because GPA is the biggest agreement on this sector regarding the number of members. The principles of chapter 9 in the government procure- ment in EVFTA can be illustrated as follows: Firstly, the transparency principle: under this chap- ter, transparency is regulated to guide both countries’ government in constructing an exclusive system of in- formation which is freely accessible to domestic firms as well as foreign firms, an electronic mean is highly recommended. In this system, the information of the contract has to be sufficiently clear, especially prices, terms, and conditions. However, EVFTA created a roadmap for Vietnam to exempt this clause for 10 years after the validation of the agreement to fully pre- pare for the implementation duty. Secondly, non-discrimination treatment: EU and Vietnam aimed to form a fairly competitive market for firms of both sides to do business in, and fair treat- ment is vital to build such an ambitious environment. EVFTA also requires that all purchases must be open tendered except for the contracts thatmeet conditions to hold limited or selective tendering. Thirdly, electronic tendering: electronic tendering is one of the newest means of tendering in the world to increase the efficiency of the government procure- ment tendering process. EVFTA also includes this el- ement to enhance the speed and fairness in the sector. Fourthly, anti-fraud: both parties under EVFTA have to make a legal framework to settle disputes fairly and effectively. Factors affecting the implementation of the government procurement clause in EVFTA fromVietnamperspective To analyze the factors affecting the implementation of EVFTA’s chapter 9, it is crucial to investigate the pre- vious research on the indicators of efficiency in ten- dering activities management. Ngugi & Mugo (2012) investigated the impacts on Kenya’s government pro- curement sector of 4 internal factors: “accountabil- ity” of authority bodies in conducting government procurement activities; “information communications technology adoption” (ICT adoption); “internal pro- cess” which relates to the legal framework that man- ages contractors and contracts in this activity; and “ethics”. The 4 factors mentioned above explained for 82.5% of the procurement process efficiency 13. Ki- age (2013) collectedmore affecting variables in his re- search, which are 4 main big factors: “procurement planning”; “resources allocation”; “staff competency”; and “contracts managements”. In his findings, these 4 factors explain about 87.5% of procuring perfor- mance14. Kiama (2014) insisted after analyzing the quantita- tive research that “Strategic planning”, “Regulation en- forcement” and “Organization culture” are the three determinants of the government procurement per- formance15, which partially agrees with the research mentioned above. Paying most of the attention to le- gal framework and ethics, Amayi&Ngugi (2013) took a correlation test and found out that “legal framework”, “information communications technology” (ICT) and “ethics” can deeply explain for variations of the gov- ernment procurement efficiency16. In Vietnam, Do Kien Vong (2019) in his research, pointed out that there are 5 factors having impacts on the government procurement performancewhich are: “legal environment”; “means and types of tendering”; “contract’s commodity and features”; “management ca- pacity”; and “international integration spirits”10. As for the consideration about the above results and the actual characteristics of Vietnam economy, the ar- ticle chooses to analyze 5 factors which relate themost to Vietnam: (1) existing legal framework (or environ- ment), (2) contracts management capacity, (3) pro- curement planning activity, (4) ICT adoption and (5) international integration spirits. Existing legal framework In Vietnam, “procurement rules have for years not only been limited in scope but have also been highly fragmented”17. The current law stipulating the ten- dering activities is the LawNo.43/2013/QH13 on Bid- ding (VNLB). Compared to the earlier versions of 1107 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 laws regulating this sector, this law is superior, more sufficient, and closer to the global standards. Be- fore 2005, this market in Vietnam is mainly the play- ground for the state-owned enterprises and regulated by Decision No. 24/BXD-VKT on Mechanism of bidding for construction contracts on February 12th, 1990, and its following modifications. After a long time of inefficient operation with many drawbacks, Law No. 61/2005/QH11 on Bidding on November 29th, 2005 was issued as the first law-level legal docu- ment created a framework to ensure the efficiency of government procurement procedures. With the range of governance as an official law, Law on Bidding 2005 has arranged the functions relatively rationally. The bidding process was regulated, much or little, inmany legal documents which caused the overlaps between laws and the inefficiency among departments within the country17. For example, “two departments reg- ulating this at the same time are Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Planning and Investment”8. The lat- est version of the law on the public procurement, as illustrated in the previous section, is the law made from the resources of GPA’s principles. As a conse- quence, issued on November 26th, 2013, the VNLB made a wind of change to the sector in Vietnam. With the issuance of Decrees and Circulars following them to instruct the implementation of the Law, this new legal system has reached several positive objectives. Firstly, the standardization of procuring procedures eliminated most of the biased information from other laws or by-law documents. Moreover, the law ex- pands the chances for firms by reducing contracts bid by direct appointments. This expansion enhanced the competitiveness of the government procurement market as firms can participate in the bidding process easily. Then, the Decree No.63/2013/NĐ-CP on in- structions to the VNLBwas issued on June 26th, 2014, which clarifies and instructs the specifications for the firm to join the procuring process as well as the in- formation publicationmechanism of state authorities. Finally, the electronic procurement is the brightest point among the Law on Bidding of 2013. It can be concluded that the lawmade a big leap to a better ver- sion of the government procurement in Vietnamwith higher transparency and openness. However, the do- mestically preferential policies in the law, in terms of conditions for implementing EVFTA, shall be a signif- icant obstacle due to the conflict with the agreement. Besides minor negative points that need urgent mea- sures, the current legal framework of Vietnam regard- ing the government procurement sector is relatively progressive. With the implementation of EVFTA, it is predicted to create several expansions to regulate this foreign-involved activity. Contractsmanagement capacity With tendering processes and procedures, Vietnam is running this market with a system relatively close to international standards; the average time to proceed with a procurement package is about 183-215 days while this number in member states of GPA is 85-382 days18, nearly the same median. The drawbacks here lie in the actual operation as several negative points show up. For example, bid rigging is a form of corrup- tion that official(s) in the state authorities give privi- leges and irrationally preferential advantages to cer- tain suppliers to exchange for benefits. The informa- tion established about the procurement plans under the current situation, however, is considered as a pro- gressive step when it is easily accessible throughmany channels. Regarding the quality of human resources in the government procurement sector, Duong Xuan Ngoc (2019) insisted that the quality of public employees has been improved steadily in recent years. He also analyzed that the structure of employees within the government has a positive change in the upward trend of high-qualified workers19. At the end of 2012, there are a total of 535,528 public employees in the country with 56% of them had at least a university degree. He emphasized that many progresses are made to the re- cruitment process. LawNo. 22/2008/QH12 on Public Employees issued on November 13th, 2008, Law No. 58/2010/QH12 on State Officials issued on November 15th, 2010, and laws on organizing state authorities regulates the rights, obligations, and qualifications of public employees during recruitment. This is a pro- gressive point on the way to improve the working ca- pabilities of human resources in national bodies. However, Vietnam has a huge quantity of state offi- cials in South East Asia. According to the General Statistics Office’s data, until July 1st , 2017, Vietnam has 3.8 million state workers, accounting for almost 5% to the total population, highest in the South East Asia region20. Moreover, in Vietnam, a large number of state officials stay in the permanent payroll, which is believed to reduce the motivation to work as well as the efficiency because these public employees feel safe about the stable compensation packages. Therefore, the budget spending on compensation of workers ac- counts for a big proportion of the total budget, which leads to a dangerous situation if the quality of works is not deserved with that budget. In the first quar- ter of 2019, according to the report of the Ministry of Finance, the expenditure for employees’ compensa- tion consumes 50%ofNormal expenditure account or 31% of the total national budget in equivalent, about 1108 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 500 trillion VND (estimated with data form Plan of national budget 2020) 21. Last but not least, there ex- ists not only the deficiency in the recruitment process but also the unbalance in the distribution of quali- fied workers between departments due to the unethi- cal ways to get the job in the state authorities. It can be judged that the contract management capac- ity of Vietnam in the current context is relatively un- der the global standards with many loopholes for cor- ruption, which are quite barriers to adapt to EVFTA’s requirements. Procurement planning of authority depart- ments Within Vietnam, procurement planning is an inter- nal activity, which means only the procuring entities can be aware of the tender documentation before it’s published to the official tender information channel. Here is the analysis of several aspects of procurement planning activities in Vietnam. In general, the current system is not bright. Firstly, about delayed tender documents publication (refers to the tender approved but published at least 7 working days later), on average, there are about 45 tender packages have a late publication (calculated by the authors on 2018’s data of DauThau News) on the tendering information portal each day, which leads to about 11,698 packages with the late publication of in- formation each year accounting for 4.69%of total pro- curement packages of the country 22. This shows the weaknesses in conducting the government procure- ment planning of the state authorities. Most of the de- layed procurement invitations are from local authori- ties, where the procurement planning are not rational, mostly based on the short-term objectives of officials. Secondly, the regulations of law on procurement plan- ning are not specifically clear. Article 33, 34 in VNLB regulates the necessary information of a procurement plan including superior approvals, budget, quantity, etc. However, the Circular No.10/2015/TT-BKHĐT instructing those 2 articles and the attached Annex 1 didn’t mention the objectives, the rationale of the pro- curement planning. Moreover, Article 24, 25 in De- cree No.25/2020/NĐ-CP mentioned broadly on the planning activities in the sector but it’s not enough to guide the departments to conduct these activities. De- cree No. 63/2014/NĐ-CP doesn’t mention the crite- ria to form a procurement plan. The problem stays at the demand of the departments, where the purpose of procurement can be exaggerated to expand the budget andmay cause corruption. Without a reasonable plan of procurement, the state departments shall have dif- ficulties looking for the efficiency in the government procurement sector and hence set up barriers for the implementation of chapter 9 in EVFTA. Information Communication Technology (ICT) application Vietnam is under a modernization process with the awareness of the benefits of the application of the newest technologies to the management activities of the Vietnamese government. Alghamdi, Goodwin, and Rampersad (2011) set up a framework to assess the readiness of a developing country on applying e-government which contains a number of criteria 23. The Table 1 shows the analysis of Vietnam’s current ICT adoption. Vietnam is on the way to form the platform of e- government, however, through the analysis of the checklist derived from the table above, the ICT appli- cation in Vietnam’s government is fundamentally not qualified enough, especially the government secure network, ICT architecture, and infrastructure. Re- garding internet-based security activities, in 2019, the internet criminals robbed 20,892 billion VND from Vietnam’s citizens, increased by 5,992 billion VND compared to 2018 24. Vietnam’s ICTDevelopment In- dex in 2017 is 4.43 points, ranking 108 globally, which is relatively worse than the global average25. The ar- chitecture of ICT in Vietnam’s government procure- ment, even though has many progressive steps for- ward, there are still several technical deficiencies in the tendering ICT. Regarding ICT infrastructure, the stability of this system, as well as that of general in- ternet connection of the nation is not good. In recent years, there are numerous troubles happening to the optical fiber cable system connected to the world in- ternet. The same risks can happen to tender sessions as firms lose the chances to apply for a bid and hence decrease the fairness. Overall, the ICT adoption of Vietnam regarding the government procurement sector reveals numerous weaknesses that need amendment however, the fast- growing speed of ICT systems across the country proves the development potential in the near future. International integration spirits From 1991, after 5 years of renovating the country, Vietnam’s government orientates the integration poli- cies as “multilateral and diversifying diplomatic re- lations”. Since then, the determination of the Viet- namese government is bigger to join the global econ- omy. In 1996, the Resolution No.01-NQ/TW stated to “accelerate the process of international integra- tion”. In 2011, at the Eleventh National Congress 1109 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 Table 1: Checklist on the ICT development of Vietnam regarding public procurement No. Criteria Brief Assessment 1 General ICT appli- cation strategy Well conducted by the Vietnamese government with laws, decrees, and circulars. In many fields of socio-economy like education, legal procedures, medication, it is highly recommended by the state authority to apply with new technology. Moreover, the trend to combine and utilize the decentralized contents from collaborating authority entities is very obvious in recent years. 2 System’s User Access Firms and citizens can supervise by free access to the information portal, however, within a limitation. The information which is supposed to come to the firms and cit- izens are friendly approaching. Almost departments, ministries, offices, agents, insti- tutes now established their independent websites for updating information of the or- ganizations and keep in touch with the stakeholders. 3 E-government programs 3.1 Single-Sign-On Pro- gram* Not yet applied to the system even though this type of innovation is widely used in developed countries like Singapore, Australia, United States, etc. 3.2 Government Service Bus Applied but still bulky, not lean, and mostly top-down structure, especially in terms of information transition. The cooperation between related departments is still loose so the co-efficiency is not promoted after a few years of application. 3.3 Government Secure Network No specialized department in charge even though there is a law on this issue 4 ICT Architecture Not efficient, there are portals in the Ministry of Planning and Investment as well as Dau Thau News and the government procurement portal; scalability and stability are not well-designed 5 Business process and information systems The tendering process is relatively close to the international standards but the system to exchange the information within and between state authorities is not good enough. 6 ICT Infrastructure Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing countries regarding ICT devices and the usage of citizens. The infrastructure, by that, developed fast in recent years Source: analyzed by the authors from the framework of Alghamdi, Goodwin, and Rampersad (2011) of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the orientation of “proactively integrate with international” was first introduced, and through the Resolution 22-NQ/TW, global integration has become the central direction in economic development of the country. It’s undeniable that there has been a great deal of progress made by Vietnam due to the reasonable strategies and orienta- tions of the Party and the Vietnamese government26. Until March 2019, there are total 13 bilateral andmul- tilateral free trade agreement has been signed includ- ing the most comprehensive agreements: EVFTA and CPTPP. This factor is one of the strongest points in Vietnam. Since Vietnam is eager to cooperate and locate oppor- tunities from EVFTA on the global economic collab- oration path, it can highly adapt to the regulations of EVFTA on the government procurement. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Discussion Current situation of Vietnam regarding the government procurement The period of 2013 – 2018 witnessed the total value of the government procurement tendered rocketed by about 1.5 times from 411 trillion VND to 647 trillion VND. This value always accounts for around 10% of GDP annually27. The explanation for this increase is that Vietnam, with the expansion of the economy and trade with other countries in the world, needs to have a better controlling system tomanage or fund the development of the society. However, the efficiency of the tendering process has not been ignored; it in- creased well with the savings from the government procurement tendering procedures. According toMr. Pham Binh An, this tendering activities in Vietnam are still facing the constraint between the quality and time in the tender packages with specialized contents or with limited participants. If all the administrative 1110 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 procedures are performed sufficiently, it will take a long period of time, which is wasted. On the other hand, if any step in the procedures is skipped, the con- tractors are hardly rewarded with the contract. Be- sides, with the currentmanagement capacities ofViet- nam regarding the government procurement, many frauds caused by the bid rigging can happena. This is the dark side of the current tendering system, which can cause unnecessary wasted resources. It is urgent that the Vietnamese government needs to make great determination and endeavors to intervene and im- prove the system of tendering. Implications for Vietnam state authorities Firstly, regarding the legal framework, Vietnam should clarify and modify the definitions system in the government procurement field. Most of the defi- nitions of these two legal documents are equivalent; however, some definitions may cause misunderstand- ing like “direct appointment” under Vietnam law and “limited tendering” under EVFTA, should be clarified for firms, both domestic and foreign. This measure also prevents the conflicts of regulations in the fu- ture. According to Mr. Pham Binh An, the most im- portant thing to successfully launch this agreement is that Vietnam has to “localize” the contents of the EVFTA to create compatibility with the current socio-economy of Vietnam. This process includes checking and comparing EVFTA’s regulations with Vietnam’s law and adjusting the unsuitable clauses to apply the agreement to Vietnam.b Mr. Pham Van Chat has the same opinion about this problem insist- ing that the Vietnamese government is standing in front of the demand of modifying the legal environ- ment, conditions, and procedures in the related law and by-law documents, taking advantage of the mod- ern technologies to conduct the regulations as well as possible.c The best way to “localize” these contents is that to form separate legal documents to ensure the implementation of EVFTA’s government procure- ment clause in Vietnam [4, p.30]. This measure is reasonable because the costs to entirely change the ex- isting legal framework is too high; besides, the regula- tions of the VNLB are very closed to the international standards, and their differences compared to EVFTA are only specifically applied to the government pro- curement relation between the two countries; and the aPham Binh An (Mr) – Director, Hochiminh City Centre of In- ternational Integration Support (CIIS). bSee supra note 1 cPham Van Chat (Mr) – Arbitrator, Vietnam International Arbi- tration Center; Senior Lecturer on International Economic Integra- tion, Ministry of Trade and Industry. later inspection and review may be easily conducted due to the clarity. And it is hard to deny that the treat- ment to frauds should be more strict and serious to prevent and punish the criminal behaviors. The ex- periences from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union show that heavy punishments are highly effec- tive in enhancing this sector28. Secondly, regarding the management capacities to- wards the government procurement sector, it is neces- sary to have a system to assess the quality of the con- tracts’ performance with contract justification and a clear frame of specifications. This activity should be carried out by an independent authority organiza- tion. Without inspecting the quality of the procure- ment contracts, frauds and deficiencies may occur and cause negative results for the development plan. In Vietnam, investigating after contracts is a loose and shaky step. In recent years, many constructions are detected to be distorted from the requirements, and only when accidents happened did the people know about the frauds. Setting clear specifications and checking carefully after contracts are carried out are contributing to the efficiency of the whole govern- ment procurement sector, especially in EVFTA. An- other applicable stipulation is multi-use lists, an ef- fective measure to save the costs of holding disper- sive bidding sessions because the Vietnamese gov- ernment hasn’t systemized the common needs of de- partments so as a consequence, the costs of holding separate bidding sessions by each authority for the same commodity will cause overlap and be unreason- ably wasted. EVFTA cleared that this regulation is op- tional, and Vietnam can be very beneficial to make use of this mechanism. For years, legal procedures have been a heavy burden for any company working in Vietnam. It used to take a long time and several steps to proceed with a document, permission, a cer- tificate, etc. It is suggested that Vietnam should build a system of “one door process” whichmeans the cit- izens only come to the state authority for once and then their needs are fulfilled. These citizens shall be guided to complete the information, fulfill the essen- tial documents, and once done, they will wait for the next appointment to have the problems solved. This measure requires a high infrastructure of ICT and smart design of procedural systems like the database; the applications to guide citizens prepare the docu- ments from home to save time, the digital signatures to decrease the time of waiting for approvals, etc. Last but not least, redesigning the recruitment process makes the administrative activities more efficient. The drastic measures include eradicating the guan- xi culture – taking jobs and benefits by relationships 1111 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 with powerful people; adding the third-party supervi- sion in the recruitment process; and raising the basic compensation packages so that employees can focus more on the job rather than looking around the op- portunities to do additional jobs at the same time and cause a decline in the main work efficiency. These ac- tions only solve the short-term problems; to develop talents in the long-term, the government should im- prove the education system, especially the career ori- entation and job training. With the current situa- tion of Vietnam, these measures should be performed gradually through careful steps due to the existence of many benefit groups. However, with the determi- nation of the Party, it is highly believed that the effi- ciency of the state authorities shall be developed in the near future. Thirdly, regarding the ICT application, from the checklist of Alghamdi, Goodwin, and Rampersad 23, to successfully implement the government procure- ment clause under EVFTA, it is critical for the Viet- namese government to improve immediately these four aspects: ICT infrastructure, ICT architecture, business process with an information system and e- government programs. To improve these aspects, there is an urgent need of constructing the unique information system of the government procure- ment shared by state authorities to connect the workflows and increase the efficiency in cooperation between departments in proceeding documentations. This system can be delegated to a third-party unit like Viettel, a world-class state-owned corporate, to con- struct and give the administrative rights back to the government. With a system like this, the speed of tendering procedures shall be dramatically decreased and facilitate businesses. Moreover, it is crucial to im- prove theprotocol between state authorities and cit- izens as well as firms. The best scenario is that with one time logging into the system, the citizens and en- terprises can access throughmany procedures and de- crease the time of waiting. Not only in the e-tendering process but also in the remaining sectors of the gov- ernment. Besides, the necessary information for cit- izens also transported through this protocol, not to mention a feedback mailbox where citizens can sug- gest measures to improve the current procedures. Fourthly, regarding the procurement planning activi- ties, there should be accessible measures to resolve the problems of the rationality of the procurement plans: these plans need to be announced to the cit- izens about its rationality, except for the confiden- tial ones which relate to national security. Moreover, the purposes and the importance of the procurement packages, to be efficient, also need to be justified by another independent specialized authority. Objective judgments from a third-party are always the ultimate reference source to create transparency in any indus- tries and activities. With the surveillance from citi- zens and the inspection of other departments, the per- formance of planning activitiesmay be improved. The more transparent these activities are, the more effi- cient the plans are and the less wasted budget shall be. Finally, regarding the international integration spirits, Vietnam should take advantage of this while mak- ing effort not to be ignorant and to be highly pro- gressive and adaptive. Since the beginning of the new 2nd millennium, Vietnam has witnessed numer- ous frauds and misbehaviors of foreign companies with their Vietnamese partners29,30. The ignorance of international business customs and laws of Viet- nam firms is partially to blame for these unfortu- nate events. The solutions are clear: the government should frequently update the knowledge about the international business environment and legal as- pects to help domestic firms avoid the common mis- takes and gradually get used to the regulations of free trade agreements such as EVFTA. Then, they should collaborate efficiently with the foreign government and local Embassy to jointly prevent similar cases to happen in the future. Besides, the outstanding com- panies that thrive from doing business with foreign partners should be honored by the government to encourage more and more businesses to form their global sales network. Conclusions The above analysis investigated the factors affecting Vietnam significantly while implementing the gov- ernment procurement clause under EVFTA. Com- bining with an overview of the current situation of theVietnamdomestic government procurementmar- ket, the article presented a number of implications for Vietnam to successfully take advantage of EVFTA’s chapter 9. These implications are hopefully about to help the Vietnamese government can set up a clear strategy and specific action plan to foresee the potential and take benefits from the government procurement reg- ulations of EVFTA and prevent the negative phe- nomenon which may occur during the implementa- tion. Furthermore, in compliance with this strategy, the Vietnamese government can improve the sector not only in the relationship with EU’s contractors but also the general procurement system in Vietnam, in which the budget distribution can significantly decide the development of the country. 1112 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 4(4):1104-1114 Despite the intense effort of the Authors, the article is not able to cover the entire picture of the govern- ment procurement reality ofVietnamcompared to the global standards as long as the quantitative impact of chapter 9 of EVFTA on the Vietnamesemarket. These are potential orientations for further research./. 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Điều khoảnmua sắm công trong hiệp định EVFTA và những hàm ý đối với Việt Nam Nguyễn Tiến Hoàng*, Đỗ Hoàng Vương Use your smartphone to scan this QR code and download this article TÓM TẮT EVFTA là một trong những nỗ lực mới nhất của Việt Nam nhằm đẩy mạnh tiến trình hội nhập quốc tế, là khuôn khổ được dự đoán sẽ có lợi cho Việt Nam ở rất nhiều khía cạnh khác nhau. Mua sắm công là lĩnh vực không thể tránh khỏi tác động của Hiệp định này. Mục tiêu của nghiên cứu này là tìm hiểu thị trườngmua sắm công ở Việt Nam, hiệu quả của Nhà nước trong việc quản lý thị trường mua sắm công và những tác động của Hiệp định EVFTA đến thị trường này. Quan trọng hơn, thông qua việc xem xét những yếu tố quan trọng có khả năng ảnh hưởng đến việc thực hiện Hiệp định EVFTA từ góc nhìn của Việt Nam, nghiên cứu này đánh giá sự phù hợp giữa thực trạng tại Việt Nam với những điều kiện cơ bản để thực hiện có hiệu quả điều khoản về mua sắm công trong Hiệp định EVFTA. Các tác giả đã thu thập, tổng hợp và phân tích dữ liệu thứ cấp từ các nguồn đáng tin cậy như Tổng cục Thống kê, bảng xếp hạng của Hiệp hội Viễn thông Quốc tế, báo cáo thường niên chính thức của các Bộ, Ban, Ngành ở Việt Nam và các tài liệu khác. Ngoài ra, nhóm tác giả còn sử dụng phương pháp phỏng vấn sâu với các chuyên gia có nhiều năm kinh nghiệm làm việc trong lĩnh vực hội nhập quốc tế. Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy rằng Việt Nam có khả năng thực hiện Hiệp định EVFTA hiệu quả nhưng với một sự chuẩn bị kỹ càng hơn. Nghiên cứu cũng chỉ ra rằngmặc dù có quan niệm rất đúng đắn về hội nhập quốc tế, một số khoản chi tiêu của Chính phủ vẫn còn bị quản lý lỏng lẻo, dẫn tới những khoản chi ngân sách chưa hợp lý. Nghiên cứu cũng đưa ra một số hàm ý để nội luật hóa các quy định của EVFTA và một số đề xuất nhằm áp dụng công nghệ hiện đại để cải tiến hệ thống mua sắm công, đặc biệt là năng lực quản lý thị trường mua sắm công của Nhà nước. Nhóm tác giả hy vọng có thể giúp các cơ quan Nhà nước có cái nhìn bao quát hơn và tận dụng những cơ hội mà điều khoản mua sắm công của Hiệp định EVFTA mang lại. Từ khoá: EVFTA, mua sắm công, hàm ý, Việt Nam Trích dẫn bài báo này: Hoàng N T, Vương D H. Điều khoản mua sắm công trong hiệp định EVFTA và những hàm ý đối với Việt Nam. Sci. Tech. Dev. J. - Eco. Law Manag.; 4(4):1104-1114. 1114