Which contents in the Investment Law will be revised?

	Why must Investment Law and Enterprise Law be amended?
	Some regulations are complicated and the Public Investment Law will be revised
	Business associations’ role put in law for the very first time

The Investment Law 2014 has contributed to creating a legal basis in developing an increasingly favorable investment and business environment. Photo: X.T

Overlap between documents

At the seminar, Dr. Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of VCCI, said that although there has been a control goal for the conditional business lines, and for business conditions, in fact, the promulgation of provisions on business lines are still out of control, and the quality of business conditions in other legal documents still has many shortcomings.

Whenever there was a major review, as in 2018, with strong pressure from the business community and with the Government’s drastic direction, ministries and sectors have completed the target of simplifying and reducing at least 50% of current business conditions as assigned by the Government.

However, there has been a question about the sustainability of this reduction, and the control method of the promulgation of new business conditions. This is the problem that the Investment Law needs to solve to prevent current, ineffective reform.

“The investment procedures have been improved and opened up (are easier). However, there is still some overlaps between related documents. For example: The time for assessments of environmental impacts (before or after being approved by investors); whether the investment procedures of the Investment Law are uniformly applied or not, and are other specialized legal documents allowed to request additional documents in the dossier?

Also, there are problems related to land auctions, land bidding of investment projects that require the State to allocate land. The relationship between the Investment Law and other specialized laws (Environmental Protection Law, Land Law, Bidding Law...) that should also be mentioned and specified in this Law.

Commenting on the Draft revised law on the Investment Law, Mr. Truong Quoc Hoe, Head of Interla Law Office, proposed that in order to simplify administrative procedures and reduce workload for management agencies, as well as costs for investors, and report the regime for sectors and branches, investors in unconditional business lines shall not be required to submit investment registration certificates.

Propose to annul registration procedures for capital contribution

Talking about new contents that will be amended and supplemented in the draft, Mr. Quach Ngoc Tuan, Deputy Head of Legal Department of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said that for the Investment Law, the draft with many key contents will be revised, such as investment procedures, the competency to decide investment policies and legal status of foreign investors. In addition to the Appendix amending and supplementing a number of business lines in the list of conditional business and investment lines, the draft revises the Investment Law amends 23 articles and supplements 1 article of the Investment Law 2014. Accordingly, Article 3 will be amended and supplemented to specify concepts: “Business investment”, “business”, "conditional business lines", “business investment conditions”, “investment conditions with foreign investors”.

Also, Mr. Quach Ngoc Tuan said that the draft law amending the Investment Law revised articles 24, 25 and 26 towards supplementing provisions to request the approval of the competent State agencies for foreign investment and foreign-invested economic organizations when contributing capital to purchase shares or capital in enterprises engaged in business investment activities in a number of key fields in localities affecting defense and security.

In addition, abolishing registration procedures for capital contribution, share purchase, contributed capital if capital contribution, share purchase and contributed capital do not increase the ownership rate of foreign investors in the enterprise; specifying processes, procedures and conditions of capital contribution, share purchase, contributed capital by individuals, organizations, state-owned enterprises and FDI enterprises.

Besides, the draft also supplements Article 26b, for specifying the rules and conditions for applying each form of investor selection to implement land use projects, including: Auction of land use rights according to the Land Law, bidding for investor selection according to the Bidding Law; approval of investment policy under the Investment Law.

Notably, the draft Law on amending the Investment Law also abolishes some investment projects subject to submission to the Prime Minister for approval of investment policies, in accordance with Article 31 of the Investment Law. Including project investments with capital of VND 5,000 billion or more, and projects that investment and business conditions are specified in international treaties and relevant laws, such as projects of foreign investors in the field of shipping business, providing telecommunications network infrastructure services, press, establishment of science and technology organizations, science and technology enterprises, with 100% foreign capital.