New policies and regulations will take effect from June 2022

Ia Dreh Commune Police, Krong Pa District (Gia Lai) are on duty 24/7 at the Citizen Identification Card making location to receive people's applications. Photo: Hong Diep/VNA.

June 30 is the deadline for reducing fees for making chip-embedded Citizen Identification Cards.

To support people and businesses facing difficulties due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Finance issued Circular 120/2021/TT-BTC, deciding to reduce a series of fees and charges. Notably, the fee for making a Citizen Identification Card with a chip is reduced by 50%.

This preferential fee is only applicable until June 30, 2022. After this date, people applying for a chip-based ID card will have to pay the fee prescribed in Circular No. 59/2019/TT-BTC.

In addition, June 30, 2022 is also the deadline for applying the policy of reducing road usage fees; fees for issuing vehicle registration certificates; fees for issuing passports, travel documents, etc.

Issuing ordinary passports online nationwide

Implementing the Project "Developing applications of population data, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period of 2022 - 2025, with a vision to 2030", the Immigration Department has coordinated with functional units to deploy online public services to issue ordinary passports (without electronic chips) to citizens on the Public Service Portal of the Ministry of Public Security.

According to information from the Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security, this service will be implemented nationwide from June 1, 2022. Previously, it was piloted in Hanoi from May 15, 2022.

Thus, from next June, people can log in to the Ministry of Public Security's Public Service Portal to register their documents, pay fees online, receive their passports by post or come directly to the immigration management agency when the results are available.

At the same time, the passport fee reduction policy is also applied until June 30, 2022.

Policy to support small and medium enterprises to start innovative businesses

According to Circular 06/2022/TT-BKHĐT (effective from June 25, 2022) guiding Decree 80/2021/ND-CP, innovative start-up small and medium-sized enterprises will be supported from the State budget for the following activities:

- Trainees of small and medium enterprises participating in intensive training and coaching domestically and internationally are supported with: Tuition, documents, meals, accommodation, and travel (including airfare).

- Small and medium enterprises maintaining accounts on e-commerce platforms will be supported:

+ For domestic e-commerce platforms: Payment fees, fixed fees and service fees that sellers must pay to e-commerce platforms.

+ For international e-commerce platforms: Seller account fees, referral fees, order fulfillment fees, warehouse fees, product barcode registration fees, product design and photography fees, advertising costs on e-commerce platforms.

- Small and medium-sized enterprises participating in international competitions on innovative startups are supported with competition fees; meals and accommodation in the host country; travel (including airfare); and transportation of documents, products, and equipment for participation in the competition.

Eliminate Foreign Language and Information Technology Certificates for Health Sector Officials

In order to reduce inappropriate training certificates for health sector officials, on April 26, 2022, the Ministry of Health issued Circular 03/2022/TT-BYT amending regulations on professional title standards for health sector officials.

The new Circular has removed all conditions on Foreign Language and Information Technology Certificates in the standards on training and fostering qualifications of professional titles of civil servants in the health sector, including:

- Officials are doctors, preventive medicine doctors, and nurses working in public health facilities.

- Public health officials work in public health facilities.

- Nursing staff, midwifery staff, medical technicians working in public health facilities. - Pharmaceutical staff working in public health facilities.

- Nutrition officers working in public service units.

- Population officers working in public population and health service units. Instead, Circular 03 only requires health sector officials to have basic information technology skills and be able to use foreign languages ​​or ethnic minority languages ​​for officials working in ethnic minority areas as required by the job position. Circular 03/2022/TT-BYT takes effect from June 10, 2022.

Stop manual toll collection on Hanoi-Hai Phong highway from June 1

According to information from the Vietnam Road Administration, from June 1, 2022, the Hanoi - Hai Phong Expressway will stop collecting manual tolls, and instead will officially pilot 100% non-stop electronic toll collection (ETC) for vehicles traveling on this expressway.

Therefore, vehicles without ETC tags, or with tags but insufficient balance in their accounts that intentionally enter the Hanoi - Hai Phong expressway from June 1 will be fined for traffic violations.

Pursuant to Point c, Clause 4, Article 5 of Decree 100/2019/ND-CP, amended and supplemented by Decree 123/2021/ND-CP, the fine for car drivers will be from 2 to 3 million VND, and the driver's license will be revoked for 1 to 3 months.

Therefore, to be able to travel smoothly on the Hanoi - Hai Phong highway without being fined, drivers need to quickly stick the ETC automatic toll collection card and deposit enough money into that account.

Use paper invoices only until June 30

According to Decree No. 123/2020/ND-CP, enterprises and economic organizations that have announced the issuance of printed invoices, self-printed invoices or purchased invoices from tax authorities before October 19, 2020 will continue to use those invoices until June 30, 2022. Instead of using paper invoices, from July 1, 2022, enterprises, economic organizations, business households and individual businesses will have to switch to using electronic invoices.

Currently, 63 provinces and cities across the country have implemented the application of electronic invoices. Although there are still many problems in the implementation process, the application of electronic invoices also shows many benefits such as:

- Help invoice users and invoice recipients save costs in administrative procedures.

- Minimize risks during use, avoid loss and damage of invoices.

- Help businesses promote digitalization, state agencies promote administrative procedure reform, implement e-government, digital government...