Developing e-commerce goes hand in hand with increasing responsibility for compliance with the law

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Counterfeit, real, and genuine products are displayed by authorities for identification.

Create motivation for sustainable development

According to the Department of E-Commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade), in Vietnam, e-commerce is one of the pioneering fields of the digital economy, creating motivation for economic development and leading digital transformation in business. In 2022, according to investigations and surveys of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, retail e-commerce revenue in Vietnam is estimated to grow by 20% for the whole year compared to 2021, reaching 16.4 billion USD, accounting for 7.5% of retail sales of consumer goods and services nationwide. The number of consumers participating in online shopping is over 54.6 million people, and the online shopping value of one person reaches nearly 270 USD/year. In the first 6 months of 2023, Vietnam's retail e-commerce sales are estimated to reach 10.3 billion USD, an increase of about 25% over the same period, accounting for 7.7% of the country's revenue of consumer goods and services.

The rapid development of e-commerce in the digital economy has led to the birth of many new business models and methods in many different regions and industries, posing significant challenges in terms of the adaptability of the legal corridor. In addition, e-commerce is a field with the intersection of many legal document systems as well as the industry management functions of many state management units, including: the legal system as the foundation for commercial transactions, regulations on electronic transactions in general, regulations governing e-commerce transactions in particular, or regulations on market management, business management, and tax management, customs management, network security management, etc.

Therefore, the legal system of e-commerce must not only keep up with the strong development of e-commerce but also ensure uniformity and consistency, creating an open environment for businesses and people in effective and sustainable e-commerce applications. In order for the policy infrastructure to be effective and synchronous, the National Assembly and the Government are currently developing, amending, and supplementing documents to unify the legal system for e-commerce such as Law on Electronic Transactions revised Amended 2023, amended Consumer Protection Law 2023, Decree No. 13/2023/ND-CP on personal data protection, Decree No. 91/2022/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 126/2020/ND-CP detailing a number of articles of the Law on Tax Administration, draft Decree on customs management for import and export activities via e-commerce, etc.

Anti-fraud

In addition to creating a legal corridor for e-commerce to develop, it is necessary to strengthen solutions to combat fraud in the e-commerce environment.

According to Mr. Le Huy Anh, Deputy Director of the Department of Intellectual Property, in the coming time, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in the digital environment, contributing to improving business and investment environment, it is necessary to focus on solutions such as: organizing the effective implementation of the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Intellectual Property Law 2022, effective from January 1, 2023, especially new contents related to the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights specified in Articles 212, 213 and 214, 216, 218 of the amended Intellectual Property Law.

In addition, strengthen the capacity of management agencies and enforcement agencies; improve coordination efficiency between enforcement agencies such as the Police, Border Guard, Customs, and specialized state management agencies (for each product group); in controlling counterfeit goods and goods infringing intellectual property rights at domestic production facilities and at border gates.

In addition, increases the effectiveness of coordination between rights holders enforcement agencies, and e-commerce platform owners in providing genuine goods, and skills in recognizing counterfeit goods and goods infringing intellectual property rights. Complete the mechanism to bind e-commerce platform owners' responsibilities for goods that infringe intellectual property rights.

At the same time, promote propaganda and promotion activities and raise public awareness in preventing and combating intellectual property rights infringements in the digital environment and e-commerce.

In the long term, Mr. Le Huy Anh believes that it is necessary to promote propaganda, education, training, and capacity-building activities, aiming to build a culture of respect for intellectual property rights throughout society, towards building a business community that is fully aware of the benefits of building its own intellectual property rights as well as the risks that intellectual property rights infringement can cause to sustainable development of the business.

From the perspective of tax management in e-commerce, Mr. Bui Thanh Hieu, Tax Inspection Department (General Department of Taxation) said that the General Department of Taxation has submitted to the Ministry of Finance to submit to the Government for promulgation Decree No. 91/2022 /ND-CP amends and supplements a number of articles of Decree No. 126/2020/ND-CP stipulating the responsibility to provide information of e-commerce trading exchanges which is carried out quarterly by the electronic method through the Electronic Information Portal of the General Department of Taxation. In addition to completing tax legal documents, the General Department of Taxation has also commented on the draft Law on Electronic Transactions to strengthen state management of e-commerce activities. Simultaneously, the General Department of Taxation reported to the Ministry of Finance to develop the Project "Tax Management for e-commerce activities in Vietnam". On that basis, specific roadmaps have been proposed for synchronous implementation of solutions at tax agencies at all levels to strengthen tax management for e-commerce activities.

Mr. Bui Thanh Hieu added that the General Department of Taxation has issued many official dispatches directing the entire sector to strengthen the implementation of measures to improve the efficiency of tax management, tax inspection, and examination for e-commerce business model.

Tax authorities also regularly review, classify, monitor, and update information on companies that are organizing business activities and generating income from e-commerce in management areas according to specific groups of subjects: businesses with income from foreign organizations (such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, etc); online business and sales businesses; businesses operating online house rental activities through applications (such as Booking.com, Agoda, etc); Enterprises pay for electronic services of foreign contractors; Enterprises that organize and operate e-commerce trading exchanges (such as Lazada, Shopee, etc), operate intermediary payment applications (such as Vnpay, Airpay, Napas, etc), intermediary transportation applications (like Grap, Baemin, etc).