Concerns about the reality of administrative procedure reform activities

The Business Law Flow Report is an annual report of VCCI starting from 2018, aiming to record the movements of business law in a year, mentioning in-depth legal issues, affecting the business investment environment in our country.

Sharing at the workshop, Mr. Pham Tan Cong, Chairman of VCCI emphasized that an important wish that the business community wants to convey in this Report is the stability of the legal environment to promote private economic development. For large investment projects, implemented over a long period of time, investors always require the stability and predictability of the legal environment to decide whether to invest or not. High legal risks mean that business investment activities of enterprises are less favorable.

The report published by VCCI shows that in 2022, policy and law making activities in our country have some main "currents" as follows: Policies to respond to the impacts of the world economy are reasonable and quite flexible; policies related to support and recovery after the pandemic continue to be promoted, contributing to helping businesses overcome difficulties; policies related to digital platforms continue to be improved; administrative procedure reform activities, reducing compliance costs continue to be promoted...

However, the VCCI report also reflects that, in addition to the fact that many administrative procedures and compliance costs have been reduced and simplified, businesses still have concerns about the substance of this activity. Because many complicated regulations, unreasonably increasing business costs for businesses (for example: Regulations on fire prevention and fighting...) are still absent in the proposed plans to reduce and simplify compliance costs. Along with that, in 2022, there are "hot" issues that require managers to review the management mechanism and perfect policies, such as: Land auction activities and deposit cancellation of winning businesses, or violations in issuing individual bonds. These activities have greatly impacted the economy and have a great impact on the investment and business environment...

Frankly acknowledging the shortcomings in the current business investment environment, Dr. Nguyen Minh Thao, Head of the Business Environment and Competitiveness Department, Central Institute for Economic Management, said that reforming the business environment is a key task that the Government maintains regularly and continuously. However, the reform results have not yet met the expectations of investors and businesses; the freedom of business in reality has not been truly protected.

Citing evidence of policy shortcomings that businesses and investors are currently facing, Ms. Nguyen Minh Thao said that, according to feedback from the business community, regulations on conditions for ensuring fire prevention and fighting are unscientific; not classified according to the risk level of production and business sectors; impose conditions that are beyond what is necessary and significantly increase business costs.

Another example is the inadequacy of the provisions in Decree No. 09/2016/ND-CP dated January 28, 2016 of the Government on fortifying micronutrients in food. Accordingly, this Decree stipulates: Salt used in food processing must be fortified with iodine (applied from March 15, 2017) and Wheat flour used in food processing must be fortified with iron and zinc (applied from March 15, 2018).

According to many business associations, these regulations greatly affect production and business activities; excessively increase costs, affect product quality; while not achieving effective management, not in line with risk management principles and international practices, and leading to the risk of excess iodine for a part of the population.

VU DUNG

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