* At a recent national environ-mental conference, Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vu Tien Loc said that most enterprises are considering investments in environmental protection “unbearable costs” they have been forced to pay.
However, their unwillingness to protect the environment can be explained by the lack of specific incentive policies for enterprises, especially those applying the environmental management system according to ISO 14001, even though the application of this standard was requested by their customers.
Conference participants proposed that legal documents to prevent and mitigate polluting acts or guide the payment of various charges for environmental protection, such as wastewater and garbage charge, air pollution charge, noise charge, charge payable by beneficiaries or for products the use of which might cause pollution (which may be used to set up funds to support environmental improvement) should be enacted as soon as possible.
The State should also give value-added tax and corporate income tax relief for a certain period for projects to improve the production environment at enterprises. This period should be long enough for enterprises to retrieve invested funds and make intensive investments in environmental protection. Tax rebate should also be given to expenses paid for training of personnel in charge of clean production.
Loc proposed the creation of a national environmental fund and the perfection of the operation model of local environmental funds.
* As proposed by Dr. Dang Duc Dam, director of the Enterprise Development Research Institute, along with strengthening the existing state capital investment corporation (SCIC), some more SCICs should be founded to act as representatives of the state capital owner at all existing state corporations and independent companies and perform the management of state capital, primarily by means of capital investment. Specifically, parent companies of state groups or corporations will merely invest in affiliate companies and manage these companies in the capacity as representatives of owners of invested capital.
However, at the central level, the function of representing the state capital owner at state enterprises should be performed by a sole specialized agency in charge of state capital supervision and management, which will directly manage state economic groups and SCICs but can still act as shareholders, members or owners of state companies under the Law on Enterprises. It will neither perform the state administration of business nor take part in the policy-making process.
He also suggested learning from foreign experience in the governance and assessment of state companies according to such major criteria as energy consumption level and wastewater treatment capacity.
* How to provide and enjoy subsidies for enterprises without breaching the WTO commitments was discussed at a recent seminar on revision of enterprise support policies in compliance with WTO regulations.
As voiced by seminar participants, enterprises should be deeply knowledgeable about
They should also observe amendments to national laws in consistence with these commitments. For example, the 2005 Investment Law was revised to exclude projects on export production using large quantities of domestic materials from the List of areas in which investment is promoted, and Decree No. 108/2006/ND-CP, guiding the Investment Law, shifted to base investment incentives on such conditions as investment localities, number of employees and technological level and to provide other investment supports in human resource training and supply, ground clearance compensation, access to public infrastructure and services.
Moreover, enterprises should themselves propose amendments to current regulations on incentives, join in 12 governmental programs of action in support of enterprises, and formulate their own development strategies in conformity with WTO regulations.
* In order to control the establishment and operation of real estate businesses more effectively, the Ministry of Construction is working on a regulation on higher legal capital for these businesses (from current VND 6 billion as prescribed by the Law on Real Estate Business), which is planned to be issued next year.
The Ministry expects the legal capital increase will help reduce the booming number of financially incapable real estate businesses and thereby limiting real estate projects “suspended” indefinitely due to financial problems, especially in the ground clearance stage.
* There exists a confusion between the Law on Competition and the Law on Intellectual Property regarding some violations (infringements), i.e., acts of unfair competition in intellectual property, which should be addressed by revising provisions on identification of these violations (infringements) and authorities competent to sanction them, said legal experts at the seminar for enforcement of the Law on Competition in the domain of intellectual property.
For example, it remains unclear whether an enterprise that exclusively holds a technological know-how and signs contracts to license (transfer) this know-how to other enterprises on the condition that licensees neither sell their products to certain entities nor provide production materials to other enterprises will be handled under the law on competition or under the law on intellectual property. In this case, the act allegedly violating the law on competition has not been committed by the enterprise in the marketing stage but by means of its holding of registered intellectual property rights to the know-how. Therefore, under current regulations on unfair competition and intellectual property infringements, authorities could not stop this enterprise’s act though it has created marketing limitations.
In reality, some similarities in the definitions of an unfair competition practice in intellectual property and an intellectual property infringement also led to a situation that a single violation was sanctioned twice or fell under the sanctioning competence of more than one agency, including the Competition Administration, the Economic Police, the Specialized Intellectual Property Inspectorate and the Customs.
Regarding industrial property rights protection, it is proposed that the law on intellectual property impose limitations on selection of domain names for marks already registered for intellectual property rights protection in order to prevent unauthorized use of others’ registered marks as domain names for the purpose of imitating products bearing these marks.
* Industrial parks, export processing zones and economic zones governed by Decree No. 29/2008/ND-CP of March 14, 2008, have considered this decree a big progress in the Government’s administrative reforms for it provided favorable mechanisms for their development.
Still, the heads of the management boards of some existing industrial parks in Binh Duong, Hai Phong and Ha Tinh provinces propose some amendments to this regulation regarding the treatment of industrial parks as geographical areas with difficult socio-economic conditions and the authority of management boards to manage labor forces and certify ownership of construction works in their industrial parks. Specifically, industrial parks should be uniformly treated as geographical areas eligible for incentives applicable to those with difficult socio-economic conditions, including corporate income tax incentive, under both Decree No. 108/2006/ND-CP and Decree No. 124/2008/ND-CP; and the powers of management boards to manage labor forces, certify ownership of construction works and manage infrastructure developers in industrial parks in terms of determination or approval of sub-lease rates for land areas with built infrastructure and service charges should be defined more clearly.
Other issues, such as financial supports, specifically annual support levels, from the central budget for building technical infrastructure in industrial parks under Prime Minister Decision No. 43/2009/QD-TTg of March 19, 2009 (currently provided at VND 70-100 billion for an industrial park); issuance of certificates of origin (forms A, E, S and AK, in addition to form D) under Ministry of Industry and Trade authorization to management boards under Circular No. 21/2010/TT-BCT of May 17, 2010, and specific regulations applicable to investment projects in hi-tech parks, should be addressed once the aforesaid documents are revised.-