Vietnam trade ministry slashes 675 business and investment conditions

The move aims at reducing business obstacles and boosting Vietnam’s business climate.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) on Friday has decided to cut down more than half of the total business and investment conditions, from around 1,200 terms to just 675.

“It is such a breakthrough and it's beyond my expectations,” said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. More than half of the business conditions were cut, meaning there will be less administrative burden placed on businesses.

The move is a part of the ministry’s ongoing institutional reform to improve business climate, Minister Tran Tuan Anh commented.

A simplified inspection process will also be applied to a wide range of goods. Only products at high risk of violating food safety regulations will fall under customs’ specialized inspection. The Ministry of Industry and Trade will work with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to later publish a list of exempted goods.

Accordingly, customs checks will take three to fours days less to clear, which will help save an estimated VND2 million ($100) per batch of goods.

However, a lot remains to be done to improve ease of doing business in Vietnam, which according to the World Bank, lags behind Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

PM Phuc urged the ministry to accelerate privatization of state owned enterprises and come up with better solutions to deal with 12 long-term loss projects.

Meanwhile, businesses wish the ministry could reduce the time it takes to issue some certificates and provide better support.  

Source: e.vnexpress

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Actively Review and Cut-off Unnecessary Business Conditions

Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked the Ministries to research, actively self-review to amend or proposed modifications, cutting business conditions which are not reasonable and unnecessary.

On August 22nd 2017 , under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the Government held a legislative session to give comments on the draft law on competition (revised); the draft law amending and supplementing some articles of the law on environmental protection tax; draft law on administrative unit and special economic zones; discuss on the report synthesizing the results of reviews and proposals of ministries and agencies on the drafting of laws to amend and supplement the laws relating to land, construction, housing, business and planning…

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, there are still 4,284 business investment requirements and conditions in 243 industries under the management of 15 ministries, which are regulated in 237 legal normative documents. The Ministry of Planning and Investment proposes to abolish all or part of the business investment conditions in finance, location, production capacity, human resources, business methods, planning…

Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has proposed to abolish 96 conditions of business and amend 13 conditions in 3 sectors: industry, transportation, science and technology.

Regarding the draft law on special administrative and economic units aim to create legal bases for the establishment, development, management and operation of 3 special zones namely Van Don (Quang Ninh), North Van Phong (Khanh Hoa) and Phu Quoc (Kien Giang).

In terms of the draft law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Environmental Protection Tax, the Prime Minister emphasized that the role of amending and supplementing this law in the context that environmental regulations violation is complicated. complex. According to the Ministry of Finance – the drafting agency, the current environmental protection tax policy has revealed some obstacles that need to be finalized in order to ensure that this is an important economic tool, contributing to limiting the production and use of goods that pollute the environment, encouraging the use of environmentally friendly goods towards sustainable development.

Commenting on the draft Law on Competition, the Prime Minister said that the Ministry of Industry and Trade should thoroughly review the unfair competition practices so as not to overlap with other laws.

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