The very difficult task and political determination of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is determined to eliminate “sub-licenses” within the statutory time limit, although the implementation of this determination is facing great pressure.

At the meeting of the Government Standing Committee on April 25 to resolve difficulties in implementing the Enterprise Law and the Investment Law, the implementation of regulations on business conditions became the biggest obstacle mentioned. This is both the most prominent reform content in the Investment Law and one of the two reform focuses identified by the Government in Resolution No. 19/NQ-CP.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired the first regular Government meeting on April 25.

According to the 2014 Investment Law, ministries and localities are not allowed to issue business conditions and from July 1, 2016, business conditions stipulated in ministerial circulars will expire. Therefore, decrees on investment and business conditions must be developed to replace expired circulars.

If these requirements are met, the people's freedom of business will be greatly expanded. However, the Government and ministries are facing great pressure in this work. The pressure comes first from the huge amount of work with very limited time left. There are only more than 2 months left until the deadline, while according to statistics from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, there are currently thousands of business conditions in hundreds of circulars of ministries and branches. Many Ministers admit that the development of decrees is facing many difficulties, and the Ministry of Planning and Investment believes that most of the decrees will not be issued in time for July 1.

Not only that, the Government has required comprehensive reform of regulations on business conditions, review and abolish unnecessary conditions, amend unreasonable, ineffective and inefficient conditions that create a burden of compliance costs and implementation time for investors, simplify conditions... That means not only legalizing business conditions, not just purely mechanically transferring from circulars to decrees, but also improving the quality of those conditions.

The difficulty for the Government lies in the awareness of many agencies and many officials and civil servants. The Ministry of Planning and Investment has expressed its “special concern” about the situation where many ministries and branches continue to issue business conditions.

Faced with such great difficulties, there have been suggestions that the Government should submit to the competent authority a request to postpone the deadline until after July 1, and continue to apply the circulars to have more time to develop the decrees. These suggestions stem from the fact that in case the Government does not issue the decrees in time and the circulars have expired, a “legal gap” will appear.

In principle, conditional business lines are aimed at protecting national defense, national security, social order and safety, social ethics and public health. If a "legal gap" appears, the above factors may be violated.

However, the Prime Minister did not choose that solution. He stated clearly: There must be no additional sub-licenses or conditions that hinder production and business activities, and the issuance of the decree must be completed before July 1, 2016, according to the statutory deadline.

It is clear that while the Government is affirming the spirit of reform and innovation, creating all favorable conditions for production and business, liberating production capacity, supporting and protecting business rights, the Prime Minister's determination and choice of action are extremely necessary. The Investment Law and the Enterprise Law are great achievements of the Party, the National Assembly, the Government, the people and the business community. On one side are great difficulties if we are determined to implement the Law on time and on the other side are also great expectations of the people and the business community.

People and businesses still remember the Prime Minister's commitment at the first meeting, that the Government will not back down in the face of difficulties and challenges, and at the same time, improve the discipline of the law. If only because of difficulties and pressures, the deadline for implementing regulations on business conditions is postponed, the trust of the business community and the people will certainly be affected.

The Xin Chao cafe incident that is attracting public attention is also fundamentally related to the regulations on business conditions at the circular level. Deputy Head of the Government Office Le Manh Ha commented that if the business conditions are not included in the decree but remain in the circular, “many businesses could be pho sellers.” What is easy for state agencies will cause great difficulties for people and businesses, for the whole society.

As the Prime Minister emphasized, “we must have high political determination for these two Laws to come into effect on time”. The Prime Minister’s timely opinion in the Xin Chao cafe case has been very much supported by public opinion, but clearly, stopping the criminalization of a case is much easier than the huge amount of work that Government agencies have to do in the next two months. It is very difficult, but it cannot be avoided, and the Government and the Prime Minister are determined to do the difficult part to facilitate businesses and people./.

According to Chinhphu.vn