The Ministry of Construction (MOC) has proposed to shorten the time for grant of construction permits for construction investment projects from the current 30 days to 20 days, regardless of the projects’ type and scale. In the meantime, the time limit for granting permits for separate houses would remain 15 days.
Such proposal is put forth in the latest draft law revising 51 articles and annulling another one of the 168-article 2014 Construction Law.
According to the draft, which is designed along the line of streamlining administrative procedures and simplifying investment conditions in the field of construction, appraisal of construction designs would be required only for works using public investment capital, works funded by state-owned enterprises, large-scale works to be implemented in the form of public-private partnership, and works using capital from other sources but greatly affecting public safety and interests. Particularly for construction works of these types, construction permits would be no longer needed.
For other projects, project owners would take charge of appraising and approving construction designs.
Worthy of note, the draft introduces a new concept: urban center construction investment project, which means an investment project on construction of synchronous technical and social infrastructure systems, houses and other works under an approved construction master plan authority in order to build a new urban center or re-built or renovate and refurbish an existing one. According to the MOC, these projects vary in terms of form of implementation and objectives but are always subject to strict requirements on synchronism of social and technical infrastructure, require a large area of land, and have great impacts to socio-economic development as well as the life of urban inhabitants.
In order to reduce the work load of central agencies, the draft delegates the grant of construction permits to special-grade projects to provincial-level People’s Committees. Hence, once the draft is approved, provincial-level People’s Committees will be competent to grant construction permits to all construction works in their localities. Furthermore, provincial-level People’s Committees would decentralize or authorize provincial-level Construction Departments, management boards of economic zones, industrial parks, export processing zones and hi-tech parks, and district-level People’s Committees to grant construction permits according to their tasks and functions in conformity with the Law on Organization of Local Administration.
The draft law is expected to be passed by the National Assembly at its 9th session this May.- (VLLF)
