Why does the State have a monopoly on the trade of 20 types of goods and services?

List of essential goods, services, and areas that the State holds a monopoly on related to national security - defense, national and public interests...

Clause 4, Article 6 of the 2005 Law on Commerce stipulates: "The State shall exercise a limited-term State monopoly on commercial activities for certain goods and services or in certain locations to ensure national interests", and at the same time assigns "the Government to specifically prescribe the List of State-monopolized goods, services, and locations".

Accordingly, when the List is issued, it will contribute to concretizing the Party's policies stated in the Resolutions of the Third Conference of the Party Central Committee, 9th tenure, the Sixth Conference of the Party Central Committee, 10th tenure and Conclusion 50/KL-TW of the Sixth Conference of the Party Central Committee, 11th tenure.

The State has a monopoly on the export and import of raw gold to produce gold bars. (Illustration photo: KT)

The issuance of the List will help systematize and make transparent all types of goods, services, and State monopoly areas (SBOs) in commercial activities, in accordance with international commitments, current policies and regulations, and at the same time serve as a basis for State management agencies as well as other entities in society to publicly monitor the implementation of SBOs in the listed areas.

Furthermore, the issuance of the List also helps create a unified legal basis for Vietnam's reservation of rights in international negotiations on market opening, thereby enhancing the transparency and effectiveness of the international economic integration process.

Based on the above, in Document No. 130/TTg-KTTH dated January 27, 2015, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Industry and Trade to preside over and coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to research and develop the Draft Decree, ensuring compliance with the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's laws and relevant international commitments.

Draft List has been consulted publicly

As the agency in charge of researching and developing the Draft Decree, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that the Draft Decree and the List were developed with the main viewpoint of not expanding or increasing the fields of foreign investment that have been stipulated in current legal documents, and at the same time, in accordance with Vietnam's current international commitments.

In that spirit, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has coordinated with ministries and branches to review the entire current legal system to determine the types of goods and services that will be regulated in the List, including the Law on Security, the Law on National Defense, the Law on Electricity, the Law on Postal Services, the Law on National Reserves, the Law on Railways, the Ordinance on Management and Use of Weapons, Explosives and Support Tools, Decree No. 24/2012 on the management of gold trading activities, Decree No. 30/2007 on lottery business, Decree 67/2013 detailing a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms...

Based on the review results, since 2015, the draft List has been sent to collect comments from Ministries, ministerial-level agencies, People's Committees of centrally-run provinces and cities, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and relevant enterprises; and has been posted on the website of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Government Electronic Information Portal to collect comments from organizations and individuals in the whole society. This draft List has also been appraised by the Ministry of Justice.

At the time of submission to the Government in December 2015, based on the opinions of agencies and organizations, the List is expected to include 19 types of goods, services and details of commercial activities that need to apply the National Single Window.

However, after receiving comments from Government members and instructions from the Prime Minister, the List was supplemented with raw gold, with the corresponding exclusive commercial activity of "export and import to produce gold bars", bringing the total number of goods and services in the List to 20.

The number of goods and services in the List can be adjusted down.

According to the explanation of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, all types of goods and services listed in the List are types of goods and services currently applying foreign monopoly, in accordance with the principle stipulated in Clause 1, Article 4 of the Draft Decree, which is to limit the scope of implementing foreign monopoly to only essential fields and areas where the State needs to maintain monopoly related to security - defense, national interests, public interests or other economic sectors that do not want or are not able to participate.

“The list does not expand nor increase the fields of foreign investment other than the fields prescribed in current legal documents,” the Ministry of Industry and Trade stated.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade also affirmed that foreign investment in the goods and services specified in the List must not be applied to all commercial activities related to those goods and services. Foreign investment is limited to one or several specific commercial activities, in accordance with the policy of limiting the scope of foreign investment and current legal regulations.

According to VOV