'Running'… business conditions

(Baonghean) - According to the provisions of the Enterprise Law and the Investment Law, from July 1, 2016, only three agencies, including the National Assembly, the National Assembly Standing Committee and the Government, have the right to issue regulations on business conditions. This means that up to 3,299 business conditions in circulars and decisions issued by ministries and branches will be abolished and no longer effective.

Illustration photo. Source: Internet

Therefore, it seems that there is a quiet and hurried sprint to "transfer" business conditions from circular form to the new official "playground" of decrees.

According to statistics of VCCI up to June 10, 2016, out of a total of 49 decrees guiding on business conditions that need to be newly issued, only 38 decrees have been submitted to the Government, while 11 decrees have not been submitted. Of these, only 24 decrees have been consulted by VCCI. Many draft decrees are being accelerated in construction and approval, skipping many steps in the process, such as posting drafts online, consulting with businesses, assessing impacts, organizing workshops, explaining, explaining, and receiving comments; even the intensity is so intense that up to 44 draft decrees of this type have been reviewed by a focal Ministry agency in just one week... Therefore, there are some old business conditions that are still "copy-pasted" from old circulars or "added" in the draft new decree...

In fact, in recent times, out of 267 conditional business lines (recently added the 268th business line, which is hydrometeorological forecasting and warning), 98 business lines require a business license or certificate of eligibility to do business; 69 business lines require a certificate or practice card; 31 business lines require statutory capital and deposits.

Correspondingly, there are 6,475 business conditions at different levels, of which 3,299 conditions are currently regulated in 170 circulars and decisions of various ministries. Moreover, there still exist unnecessary "certificates of certificates", such as "certificates of eligibility for business"; "documents recognizing, confirming eligibility..." of various types. Stopping these "business conditions" - "sub-licenses" has been creating harsh, strict pressure on businesses, which can discourage or stunt business ideas, as well as easily become "conditions" to harass businesses for some civil servants and public employees of ministries, branches, and localities that have the power to grant licenses and business conditions...

Business conditions are an important component of the business environment, minimizing and making them transparent is the driving force for business development; at the same time, reflecting the competitive quality of the business environment; as well as reflecting the goals, measures and criteria for assessing the quality of the institutional apparatus, professionalism, capacity, effectiveness and efficiency of state management in general, and for businesses in particular.

The elimination of illegal, outdated and unnecessary business conditions creates the expectation that Vietnam will have an open, transparent, favorable, and equal business environment, with no more conditions for harassment, bullying, or extortion, improving competitiveness at both the macro and micro levels, meeting the requirements of international integration... The fact that someone is irresponsible, intentionally or unintentionally wants to include old business conditions or modify or "upgrade" them into the new decree is going against the above trend.

The world and domestic practice have been and are having many profound lessons about the costly consequences of debt crises due to lack of control over subprime and derivative debt and debt instruments. The maintenance of subprime business conditions in standard legal documents will not only lower the quality of legal documents, but can also lead to unpredictable consequences in the future implementation...

The situation of "speeding up" and shortening the progress and process of building a decree in the style of "running" business conditions (which should have been carefully prepared long ago) has more or less predicted the inevitable situation of "premature birth" of decrees, low quality, even more or less secretly supporting the burden of business conditions, the style of "new bottle - old wine" has, is and will continue to cause frustration for the business community and for the whole society.

Dr. Nguyen Minh Phong