EVN disagrees with World Bank on Vietnam’s electricity-access index Figures about electricity access cited by Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and the World Bank (WB) show different pictures. According to WB’s Doing Business 2014 report, Vietnam’s electricity-access index ranks 135th out of 189 surveyed countries. First, customers must register to use electricity with EVN and agree on an electricity connection, which takes 30 days. Second, power company workers come to the site for one day to do field research. Third, it takes 15 days for customers to get the permit for excavating roads for laying underground electricity wire system from the local provincial transport department. Fourth, customers then hire private companies to design and execute outside works, which lasts 63 days. Fifth, it takes 30 days for customers get a certificate from the Preventing and Fighting Fire Police. Sixth, EVN installs electricity meters and signs contracts with customers, a procedure which lasts seven days. WB ranked Vietnam in a low position because of the cumbersome procedures. However, Bui Thuy Quynh, EVN’s deputy head of the business division, disagreed with WB’s figures. “We have been applying the one-stop shop mechanism with simple, convenient and transparent procedures,” she said. “It takes less than 18 days to fulfill necessary procedures for providing electricity,” she maintained, adding that the 18-day procedure has been applied at all divisions and branches of the power group since 2014. Quynh said it takes a half day to take customers’ orders, 1.5 days to conduct field research, three days to obtain agreement on electricity connection, and three days to obtain a design agreement. The final step – signing contracts and providing electricity – takes 10 days. The total time is 42 days fewer than the 60-day procedure stipulated in current law. Nguyen Dinh Cung, CIEM’s head, said that it takes 63 days to take the step 4 in WB’s report. Therefore, it would be better for EVN to think how to shorten the process so as to improve Vietnam’s electricity access index. Quynh agreed with Cung, saying that EVN has suggested providing design services and sign all-in services with customers to reduce the time for construction. In related news, the Prime Minister has approved the electricity price hike of 7.5 percent. The 7.5 percent increase will help EVN compensate for losses (estimated at about VND8 trillion) incurred in recent years from exchange rate disparities. Without the price increase, EVN's losses would exceed VND12 trillion in 2015. The price hike would also help Vietnam achieve a GDP growth rate of 6.2 percent while reining in inflation rate at about 5 per cent, it was said at the cabinet meeting. TBKTSG