VCCI Chairman Vu Tien Loc said that the business community was highly expectant of the Government’s new wave of reforms, making regulations stronger and more practical.
The Government carried out two waves of reforms in the past five years. The first was in 2016 with the highlighted requirement that no business prerequisites were raised in decrees and the second was in 2018 with the focus on simplifying and removing business prerequisites.
The third reform wave should be removing overlapping and inconsistent regulations, Loc stressed, adding that the management agencies needed to make greater efforts to create a favourable environment for businesses. Some ministries reported that around 60% of business prerequisites under their management were removed or simplified, however, the figure was only on paper, Loc said. In fact, businesses felt that the simplification or removal of business prerequisites was not that much, at only around 30-40%, according to the VCCI.
The VCCI said that the current legal system of business and investment still had a number of problems. Many business lines which required prerequistes needed to be abolished or simplified, Loc said, adding that complicated procedures for joining the market remained barriers to small- and medium-sized enterprises.
After reviewing 411 legal documents on business prerequisites, the VCCI also raised 106 proposals, including amendments to 93 legal documents, 32 laws, 51 decrees and 10 circulars, Dau Anh Tuan, head of the VCCI’s Legal Department said.
The VCCI also planned to carry out a more comprehensive review of existing legal documents with a focus on regulations about market entry and enterprise operation management. Recently, the VCCI proposed the Government to tackle 25 points of overlaps and inconsistencies in the existing regulations.
Tuan said that the business environment could not improve if business prerequisites remained in place. Nguyen Hoai Nam, deputy general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers, said he felt that ministries were still slow in carrying out reforms although the Government issued resolutions about improving the business and investment climate every year.
For example, in seafood processing and export, Vietnam had some standards which were even stricter than the US, causing a lot of difficulties for firms, Nam said. Le Net from law firm LNT & Partners said it was necessary to announce the list of business lines which required prerequisites for foreign investors to participate in.
