For the third year in a row, the central city of Da Nang has continued its reign as the top performing province in the country's Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) with a score of 69.77.

The northern mountain province of Lao Cai and southern Dong Thap province followed with scores of 67.95 and 67.22.

Surprisingly, despite being top from 2005 to 2007, the southern province of Binh Duong Province fell to fifth place.

It was the first time since the initiation of the competition five years ago that Binh Duong has fallen out of the premier group.

The Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta continues to amaze with its steady and consistent improvement. The region accounted for nine of the 22 provinces and cities ranked as "excellent" or "high" in the 2010 PCI.

The sixth annual PCI was based on a survey of 7,300 domestic firms that contributed opinions on nine aspects of governance in 63 provinces and cities. These aspects comprise entry costs, land access and security of tenure, transparency and access to information, time taken for complying with regulations, informal charges, proactivity of provincial leadership, business support services, labour and training – and legal institutions.

The views of 1,155 foreign invested enterprises were also included for the first time to provide insights into the existing Foreign Direct Investment footprint in Viet Nam.

 They also throw light on the challenge of improving the business environment to attract higher value-added investment to sustain economic growth.

Source: VNS