Submit to the National Assembly to amend and supplement the Law on Enterprises

This is an important adjustment step to perfect the legal framework for production and business activities, improve the quality of the investment environment, and meet transparency requirements in the context of Vietnam promoting international integration and preventing and combating money laundering.

According to the Government's Submission, the draft law focuses on amending regulations to simplify administrative procedures and promote digital transformation in business registration. Specifically, a number of requirements on documents that businesses must submit will be abolished and replaced by electronic identification methods based on population data. This not only helps reduce the procedural burden but also improves the effectiveness of controlling the legal status of business founders, while still ensuring the freedom to enter the market.

Integrating the business registration system with the National Population Database allows for quick and accurate identification of founders, limiting acts of profiteering and hiding behind legal entities to violate the law.

A notable highlight in the draft is the addition of 15 new contents related to beneficial owners of enterprises; this is an important content in preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing. Accordingly, enterprises will have to declare information about individuals and organizations that actually control or benefit from the enterprise, even if they are not directly named.

The requirement to provide, update and share information on beneficial owners is considered to be consistent with international practices, especially the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). At the same time, this regulation will be designed in a way that does not create new administrative procedures, does not cause additional costs for businesses, but still enhances the effectiveness of supervision by competent authorities.

The Government will issue a detailed Decree guiding the implementation of criteria for identifying and declaring information on beneficial owners, ensuring consistency with the current Law on Anti-Money Laundering.

The National Assembly’s Economic and Financial Committee, through its review, agreed on the need to amend the law and said that the draft met the urgent requirements in current law-making. At the same time, this agency also noted the need to continue to carefully review the current provisions of the Enterprise Law to make timely adjustments, to avoid legal gaps or practical problems.

One of the important proposals is to develop reasonable transitional regulations to avoid disruption or cost pressure for businesses that were established before the amended law takes effect. In addition, to make it easier for businesses to comply, the construction of a system for declaring, storing and exploiting information on beneficial owners needs to thoroughly apply digital technology and connect data between management agencies.

The amendment and supplementation of a number of articles of the Enterprise Law this time clearly demonstrates the determination of the Government and the National Assembly in building a favorable, transparent and safe investment environment; at the same time, it demonstrates our country's strong commitment to the work of preventing and combating money laundering.

On the same morning, the National Assembly listened to the presentation and report on the examination of the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Planning; and discussed in the hall a number of contents with different opinions in the draft Law on Special Consumption Tax (amended).