Grab, Uber must meet e-commerce regulations

The latest document sent by the Ministry of Industry and Trade to the Government Office, signed by Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh, clearly states that applications such as Grab and Uber must now meet regulations on e-commerce.

Specifically, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, e-commerce applications providing passenger transportation services such as Uber and Grab need to identify both their own services and e-commerce trading platform services.

Therefore, this activity must comply with the regulations on e-commerce stipulated in Decree 52/2013/ND-CP and Circular No. 59/2015/TT-BCT of the Ministry of Industry and Trade regulating the management of e-commerce activities via applications on mobile devices.

Grab, Uber must meet e-commerce regulations

The reason the Ministry of Industry and Trade requires this is because in addition to transportation activities, the use of these application software is directly related to user information, service payments and other transactions. Therefore, management in terms of e-commerce must be improved.

"The censorship and management of the above applications are to ensure State management and protect consumer rights because these applications allow consumers to directly pay for services via bank cards," the document of the Ministry of Industry and Trade stated.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade believes that because current regulations do not take into account the type of passenger transport services contracted through e-commerce applications, these businesses consider themselves only software application providers and current regulations allow them to explain that way.

This leads to three consequences that are difficult to manage and unfair. Specifically: Grab and Uber are only considered software providers, these businesses will not be responsible for safety issues for passengers and people on the road, while they are the ones collecting service fees from customers.

Furthermore, because they are only considered software providers, Uber and Grab are not subject to regulations on transportation business conditions, causing unfair competition with other transportation service providers such as taxis, motorbike taxis, etc.

In addition, if the pilot unit is a foreign enterprise, the permission to operate will not be consistent with Vietnam's "no commitment on cross-border transport services" regulations in the WTO.

"It is necessary to amend regulations to identify these as businesses providing transportation services, not just software application providers," the Ministry emphasized.

In the context of "technology taxis" gaining an advantage in the market over traditional taxis, the Hanoi Taxi Association has just proposed to stop Uber and Grab's operations after "accusing" a series of violations by Uber and Grab when operating in Vietnam such as: Not fully counting the number of vehicles, causing tax and budget losses, having to place servers in Vietnam, using Vietnamese internet domain names, data must be connected to the monitoring system of the Ministry of Transport...

Recently, at the meeting to review the recommendations of the Hanoi Taxi Association on the operation of "technology taxis" Uber and Grab organized by the National Assembly's Committee for Science, Technology and Environment, Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho affirmed that if Uber and Grab software were not boldly introduced into the market, traditional taxis would not have changed, and "there would not even be 12 traditional taxi companies participating in the pilot application of transport connection".

In addition, following the Government's direction, the Ministry of Transport is amending Decree 86/2014/ND-CP on conditions for passenger transport business by car and the Ministry also "promised" to add another chapter on the application of science and technology.

"The draft of Decree 86 amended by the Ministry of Transport has been posted, clearly defining the subjects of State management agencies, software providers and people's rights. We hope that units and Transport Associations will contribute their opinions to the Ministry of Transport to supplement the complete Decree 86," said a leader of the transport sector.

According to chinhphu.vn