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 proposed 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 fees and abolish some unnecessary fees such as: Fee for publishing business registration content; fee for providing information on business registration certificates; certificate of operation of branches, representative offices, and business locations as prescribed in Circular No. 215/2016/TT-BTC 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 effectively.

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, abolish procedures for approving housing construction investment projects according to the Housing Law, unify the application of investment policy approval and project adjustment 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 stipulated in Circular No. 230/2016 of the Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, this fee is VND 700,000/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 for exploited seafood materials, so it had to pay up to VND840 million; for small-scale production enterprises, it had to pay up to VND154 million/year for 220 sets of certificates of origin for exploited seafood materials for the EU market alone. Currently, the Ministry of Finance has proposed to reduce it 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 of 2016 of the Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, this fee is 1.8 million VND/file.

In addition, according to current regulations, the fee for appraisal, issuance and renewal of certificates of eligibility for occupational safety and hygiene training activities conducted 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