On March 24, the Government passed Decree 35/2020/ND-CP guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the 2018 Competition Law (the 2018 Law) with several noteworthy contents.

Payment intermediary service providers would have to apply measures to prevent and combat money laundering as financial institutions do. Such is provided in a draft decree prepared by the State Bank of Vietnam to revise several articles of Decree 116 of 2013.

The Government will soon issue a revision to Decree 116/2017 on the conditions for production, assembly, import and business of automobile warranty and maintenance services, removing a number of regulations relevant to auto imports.

With a view to removing existing obstacles to accelerate the equitization of state-owned enterprises, the Government on November 22 issued a new decree on transformation of SOEs into joint-stock companies.

According to Decree 116/2017/ND-CP, a private car import business must satisfy a long list of conditions, including having documents certifying or proving that it is entrusted by a foreign automobile manufacturer to recall imported cars in Vietnam.

According to a government report, during 2011-15, 508 SOEs were equitized. The speed of equitizing big SOEs has been recognized to increase significantly over the past five years. As of October 2016, there remained 718 companies in which the State held 100% of charter capital. For the period from 2016 to 2020, the Government has identified enterprises where the State holds 100% of capital and dominant shares, including those operating in key industries, important geographical areas, and security and defense fields, applying high technologies, requiring large-scale investment and creating socio-economic impetus that lack investment from other sources.

A strategic investor that wishes to purchase shares of an equitized state-owned enterprise must have the same core business lines as the enterprise.

In a market economy, especially in the context of the global recession, nobody can feel too shocked at news of the increasing unemployment rates worldwide. How to implement unemployment insurance is not an easy aspect of realizing social security policy and seeking solutions to the emerging problems in the implementation of unemployment insurance in Vietnam is of concern to businesses, laborers and the State.