Reduce many types of fees to support businesses

The fact that the Ministry of Finance is planning to amend a series of circulars, according to which many types of fees and charges will be adjusted down to facilitate businesses, is a positive trend.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance has proposed to reduce from 10% to 83% the fees for assessing conditions for practicing and doing business in the field of food safety; fees for assessing the content of film scripts, programs on tapes, discs, software, on other materials and documents in advertising food, food additives, and processing aids in the medical field.

Discussing the proposal to reduce a series of fees and charges of the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Vu Van Sang - Director of BCM Vietnam Corporate Governance Company Limited said that this is a very positive move of the Ministry of Finance in removing difficulties and creating conditions for business development.

“Through studying the draft circulars, I see that although the reduction is not large, it is extremely meaningful for small businesses and newly established businesses from business households. For these businesses, even a penny is precious. To gain trust and create motivation for businesses to enter the market, support from the State is very important,” said Mr. Sang.

Processing pangasius for export at Bien Dong Company.

The representative of BCM Vietnam Enterprise Management Company Limited said: With the policy of socializing public service provision activities, the level of fees and charges must also gradually move towards a market mechanism. Therefore, the reduction of fees and charges will positively affect the level of fees and charges for public service provision activities of enterprises. This not only brings confidence to the business community in public services performed by State management agencies, but also creates healthy competition, in a direction that benefits people and businesses.

According to economic experts, revenue from fees and charges only accounts for a small proportion (about 3-5%) of the total State budget revenue. Therefore, reducing some fees and charges has almost no impact on the State budget balance but greatly affects business operations. Obviously, along with creating favorable conditions for businesses by promoting administrative procedure reform, reducing taxes, fees and charges for businesses is a very practical move by the Ministry of Finance in supporting business development.

Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Head of the Legal Department, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), shared: The Ministry of Finance is the first ministry to have very specific cost reduction policy initiatives, in accordance with the Prime Minister's request to choose 2017 as the year to reduce costs for businesses.

Some of the proposed reductions are very important, such as the reduction of business establishment fees, although the reduction from 200,000 to 100,000 VND as planned, but note that the reduction is up to 50% and up to 100,000 new businesses established each year will benefit. More importantly, the majority of them are small and micro-sized businesses starting to enter the market. "Hopefully this policy will contribute to the motivation for more business households to convert to enterprises," said Mr. Tuan.

VCCI representative also expects: From these positive activities, the Ministry of Finance will continue to propose cost reductions for businesses. And many different ministries and sectors will have specific actions in this direction. Cost reduction and favorable business operations may reduce revenue in the short term, but in the long term, it will create more tax revenue, create more jobs and sustainable development of the economy.

A representative of the Ministry of Finance said: The Ministry has requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Ministry of Health to agree on a fee reduction related to businesses' costs for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, animal quarantine, and products.

Specifically: The Ministry of Finance proposed to reduce the fee for verifying the content of information and advertisements for drugs and cosmetics from 1.8 million VND to 1.6 million VND/file; at the same time, it also calculated to reduce the fee for verifying and granting import licenses for medicinal herbs and traditional medicines from 200,000 VND to 150,000 VND/item.

In addition, the Ministry of Finance proposed to abolish the fee for evaluating drug introduction card applications of VND200,000/application. Another fee proposed to be reduced is the fee for evaluating the issuance of biosafety certificates for genetically modified organisms eligible for use as food and animal feed. The current fee of VND120 million is proposed to be reduced to VND105 million/appraisal.

The Ministry of Finance also requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Health to provide the amount of fees and charges that will be reduced when abolishing the fee for granting quarantine certificates for imported animals, terrestrial animal products, aquatic products, transit, temporary import for re-export, and border gate transfer as prescribed in Circular No. 285/2016/TT-BTC.

At the same time, reduce the appraisal fee for granting export food certificates as required by importing countries, the appraisal fee for confirming food safety knowledge in the fields of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries as prescribed; when reducing the appraisal fee for granting circulation, import, confirmation, and declaration licenses in the field of food safety as prescribed.

According to Tin Tuc Newspaper