The codification of regulations on business investment conditions has realized the spirit of freedom of enterprise enshrined in the 2013 Constitution but there remain difficulties in the process due to disperse regulations in specialized legal documents, heard a workshop in Hanoi on October 13.
At the event entitled dialogues on legal issues arising in the codification of the legal framework on investment, Head of the MOJ’s Department of Examination of Legal Documents Dong Ngoc Ba said the National Legal Code currently under construction would consist of 45 topics and 265 headings. Investment was among 36 headings that the Government has approved for public reference and use on the Internet, he added.
Nguyen Duy Thang, Head of the Department’s Codification and Consolidation of Legal Documents, said the investment heading was structured like the 2014 Investment Law and consisted of eleven legal documents on investment, including one law, four decrees and six circulars.
Pham Anh Tuan from the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Legal Affairs Department emphasized the necessity to revise a series of legal documents on investment conditions for the inclusion of business lines and sectors banned or restricted from business investment as well as conditional business lines and sectors into the lists promulgated together with the Investment Law.
However, he said, due to the lack of universal standards for the evaluation of reasonability and necessity of regulations on business conditions or conditional business lines or sectors, a lot of business lines and sectors that should not have been controlled by business conditions were prescribed as conditional ones.
The recognition of the "selection and removal" principle in the codification of regulations on business investment conditions may affect Vietnam’s negotiations for accession to investment agreements, he added.
There also remains inconsistency between provisions of the Investment Law and those of the Bidding Law, Housing Law, the Land Law and other relevant laws, said Nguyen Bich Thuy from the Department of Examination of Legal Documents.
The participants asked the Government to give specific instructions on and relevant ministries and sectors to closely coordinate with one another in the revision of current regulations on business investment conditions. They also emphasized the necessity to set out uniform criteria for identifying business investment conditions and prescribe conditions for imposing such conditions on businesses.- (VLLF)
