It is necessary to avoid the "disguise" phenomenon of business conditions

Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Head of Legal Department, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

According to Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Head of Legal Department, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the business conditions have been recognized in many aspects, especially the factors affecting public order under the Investment Law 2014 have been used as a criterion for review and evaluation.

How do you assess the process of cutting business conditions by the ministries and branches in the past time?

According to the VCCI report, many options for making proposals to reduce and simplify are very drastic, in which the number of abolition of business conditions is quite high. Specifically, the Ministry of Transport proposed to cut 127 of the total number of business conditions for the conditional business highways’ sectors, proposed to remove 80 conditions, correct 7 conditions, accounting for 68.5%. The inland waterway Ministry proposed cutting 49 of the total number of business conditions for conditional business sectors, by removing 34, amending 2, supplementing 3, reaching the rate of 67.34%.

The statistics table of cutting and simplifying rate of the ministers shows that the figures are not only over 60% but also over 70%, especially the Ministry of Construction has 89.4% of business conditions recommended to be cut, and simplified. In the ministries’ reduction approach, most of the current business conditions in the sectors are assessed to consider about retaining or removing/amending. The business conditions have been recognized in many respects, particularly the factors affecting public order as provided for in Clause 1 of Article 7 of the Investment Law 2014, which has been used as criteria for review and evaluation.

Some ministries have proposed to completely abolish business conditions of a business activity or a sector of business on the list of conditional business in the Investment Law 2014. Specifically, the Ministry of Transportation proposed the abolition of all business conditions of the domestic multimodal transport business (in the sector of business of multimodal transport services), or the transport of dangerous goods on the railway (the railway transport business)… many general conditions, non-transparency conditions were amended or abolished by the ministries.

Thus, the 2018 review has shown the spirit of the review, reform, toward a favorable business environment.

Currently the Ministry of Industry and Trade is considered as the lead agency in reviewing business conditions, by supposing a reduction and simplification plan with 675 conditions, accounting for over 55% of the total conditions in the whole trade sector. At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has also drafted and submitted urgently a decree on the business conditions to realize these options. This is considered as the starting point for this wave of reforms.

Those have been just the achievements, would you like to talk about the limitations?

For this review, the openness of the drafting agencies for the business community is different. Because some ministries are very well intentioned they publicize the options during the drafting process, coordinate with the representatives of the community to collect the ideas of enterprises and have very transparent explanations for the acceptance or non-acceptance from their comments.

But for some ministries, VCCI only knows about the reduction, simplification option of business conditions / decrees on business conditions through the Advisory Council for Administrative Reform of the Prime Minister, or through the appraisal meeting at the Ministry of Justice, although personally the Prime Minister has instructed VCCI to participate in the process of reviewing and cutting down the business conditions.

There have been drastic and highly reformed reductions, but it is also suggested that with reducing business conditions, it is necessary to create a mechanism to block the non-appropriate regulations as they might become sub-licenses. Would you like to give your appraisal of this opinion?

I think it is important to strengthen the control mechanism, because cutting down and simplifying any condition is based on the assessment of the lead agency. Even if, when the options were consulted, the acceptance or non-acceptance of comments are based on the willingness of the drafting agency without consideration of other agencies.

Because the lack of transparency will bring many rights for the licensing officers in the interpretation and understanding, it will give reasons for harassment and discrimination against enterprises, so, it is important not to bring into existence new non-transparency provisions, which creates the great favorable conditions for the enterprises.

In your opinion, in the coming time, how will the business conditions of ministries and branches be implemented to avoid the disguise phenomenon of other types of sub-licenses?

In the coming time, the review of the ministries and branches for reducing business conditions should be further promoted and reviewed comprehensively in the decrees and laws. It is necessary to avoid the “disguise” phenomenon of business conditions which hides in other forms in spite of removal. Technically, those business conditions were abandoned, but in fact, the enterprises still have to meet and obey such regulations under a different type of condition… It also should avoid the numbers, achievements which do not bring benefits for the people and the enterprises.

Thank you, Sir!