Proposal to reduce and eliminate a series of fees for businesses

The Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform and the Prime Minister's Working Group have just recommended to the Government a number of measures to cut costs for businesses.

Specifically, the Council recommends that the Government direct ministries and branches to consider continuing to reduce fee collection levels and abolish some unnecessary fees such as: Fee for publishing business registration contents; fee for providing information on business registration certificates; certificates of operation of branches, representative offices, and business locations as prescribed in Circular No. 215/2016 of the Ministry of Finance.

According to the provisions of this document, the cost of publishing business registration content (VND 300,000/business) is too high.

Cutting many costs helps businesses operate efficiently.

Research, abolish, and simplify procedures related to business registration in Decree No. 78/2015/ND-CP regulating business registration; procedures related to changing business licenses, removing the requirement for HS customs codes in licenses for foreign-invested enterprises; research and abolish procedures for approving housing construction investment projects according to the Housing Law, unify the application of requesting approval of investment policies and project adjustments according to the Investment Law; combine the procedures for granting planning licenses with the procedures for deciding on investment policies according to the Investment Law; simplify to the maximum the requirements for provision during the project approval and design appraisal process.

In addition, the Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform and the Prime Minister's Working Group also recommended reducing some fees. For example, the fee for verifying the origin of aquatic products is regulated in Circular No. 230/2016 of the Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, this fee is 700,000 VND/verification.

Based on calculations by the Seafood Export Processing Association, a medium-sized tuna processing company in 2016 actually needed 1,200 sets of certificates of origin of exploited aquatic products, which cost up to VND840 million; for small-scale production enterprises, it also had to pay up to VND154 million/year for 220 sets of certificates of exploited aquatic products for the EU market alone. Currently, the Ministry of Finance has proposed to reduce this fee to VND630,000/appraisal, however, this fee is still high.

Another fee that needs to be reduced is the fee for verifying the content of information and advertising of drugs and cosmetics as stipulated in Circular No. 227/2016 of the Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, this fee is 1.8 million VND/file.

Along with that, according to current regulations, the fee for appraisal, issuance and renewal of certificates of eligibility for occupational safety and hygiene training activities carried out by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs is 21.5 million VND/time while the fee for the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs is 1.3 million VND/time. Thus, the difference between the ministry and provincial levels is up to 16.5 times, so the Working Group and the Council also proposed adjustments./.

According to VOV