A study by the Central Institute for Economic Management found that managers in half the surveyed companies thought paperwork procedures were too complicated, hindering the growth of their business and the whole economy.

Meanwhile, 38.5 percent of companies surveyed said the implementation of policies was not consistent.

Nguyen Dinh Cung, head of the institute’s Macroeconomics Division, said investment documents varied in different localities and it could take hundreds of days for a business to complete all the required paperwork.

About 44,000 new businesses registered with the authorities in the first nine months of this year, a 26 percent year-on-year increase, according to statistics released at the conference.

However, most of those newly formed businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises and 80 percent have a registered capital of less than VND5 billion (US$295,000).

Reported by Xuan Toan