Prime Minister commits to building healthy and transparent business climate

Prime Minister Pham expressed thanks to foreign investors for walking side by side with and supporting Viet Nam over the past more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country made a bold decisions to fully reopen borders to foreign arrivals from March 2022 when the pandemic reached its peak in Ha Noi and to organize the 31^st SEA Games in May from November 2021.

Despite negative external impacts, Viet Nam managed to sustain growth and macro-economy, tame inflation, and improve people's living standards.

The Southeast Asian country jumped 48 places to rank 14^th in Nikkei's COVID-19 Recovery Index for May, becoming one of the best performers in the world, as it managed to ease restrictions while keeping daily infections low, said Pham.

Also in May, the S&P Global Ratings raised Viet Nam's long-term sovereignty credit rating to "BB+" with a "stable" outlook on the back of strong economic recovery, he added.

The Government is now stepping up efforts in fostering recovery and socio-economic development, including its unprededented investments in expressway projects, and in combatting corruption and wastefullness under the leadership of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Pham said Viet Nam gives priority to luring investment in such fields like information technology, infrastructure for digital transformation, industrial infrastructure, climate change adaptation, green energy, diversification of supply chain, human resource training, pharmacy industry, processing and manufacturing, capital market among others.

He called on investors to continue taking part in the process of improving mechanisms and policies, urging ministies, agencies and localities to further reform administrative procedures.

The investment forum, jointly held by the central city of Da Nang and the Ministry of Planning and Investment, drew the participation of leaders from ministries, agencies and localities, representatives from international organizations and domestic and foreign-funded businesses.

During the event, the Government chief witnessed the awarding ceremony of investment cooperation agreements and certificates for 27 projects capitalized nearly US$5.6 billion./.