Reduce 21 conditional business lines; propose to put e-commerce on the "tighten" list

Cut 21 conditional business investment industries and professions

Presenting the draft Law, Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc said that, in addition to positive points, the Investment Law No. 61/2020/QH14 has revealed a number of limitations related to regulations on investors' freedom of business, preferential policies, investment support, procedures for carrying out investment and business activities in Vietnam, and investment from Vietnam to foreign countries...

These limitations have made the business investment environment less attractive to investors, especially in the context that Vietnam is facing increasingly fierce competition to attract foreign investment from countries around the world and in the region.

Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc presented the draft Law on Investment (amended).

The amendment of the Investment Law aims to perfect the regulations on conditional investment and business sectors and business investment conditions, while cutting down on some unnecessary and unreasonable sectors and trades; perfecting the management decentralization mechanism between central and local agencies on the basis of ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of state management, promptly handling practical issues, removing institutional "bottlenecks"...

The draft Investment Law (amended) has reviewed and cut 21 conditional investment and business sectors that do not meet the criteria and conditions prescribed in Article 7 of the Investment Law, including: Accounting services; Tax procedures; Rice export; Temporary import and re-export of frozen foods; Purchase and sale of goods and activities directly related to the purchase and sale of goods by foreign service providers in Vietnam;...

Currently, the conditional business lines issued with Appendix IV of the Investment Law 2020 mostly apply the pre-inspection mechanism (must apply for a license to do business), which can be switched to the post-inspection mechanism to limit barriers to market entry for enterprises, promote business freedom and to implement Resolution No. 66/NQ-CP dated March 26, 2025 of the Government on the Program to reduce and simplify administrative procedures related to production and business activities in 2025 and 2026.

The Economic and Financial Committee's review report recommends that it is necessary to continue to study, review, and reduce conditional investment and business sectors and occupations, substantially reduce investment and business conditions, and only retain conditions that are truly necessary for constitutional reasons such as ensuring national defense, security, order, ethics, and public health; study and supplement regulations on criteria for measuring and evaluating "good" business conditions and public information on minimum compliance costs.

In addition to cutting down a series of conditional business lines, the draft Law proposes to add a regulation prohibiting investment and business in the "e-cigarette and heated tobacco" business line to protect people's health.

Regarding this content, the inspection agency believes that it is necessary to exclude cases of production that only serve export activities, not for consumption, use in Vietnam or for special purposes, warranty, analysis, testing, scientific research, medicine, pharmaceutical production, national defense and security protection, etc.

In addition, the Economic and Financial Committee also requested the drafting agency to coordinate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to review and revise the industry and profession of "e-commerce activities" as a conditional investment and business industry and profession.

Continue to maintain investment policy approval procedures but simplify procedures

Regarding the procedure for approving investment policies, recently, there have been many opinions suggesting to abolish this procedure to reduce investment barriers. However, there are also many opinions concerned that abolishing this procedure will potentially pose many risks in state management, causing damage to businesses, and affecting the investment and business environment.

Regarding this issue, in Conclusion No. 194-KL/TW dated September 20, 2025, the Politburo directed to continue to regulate investment policy approval procedures in the direction of narrowing down the scope of projects that must carry out this procedure.

According to the Ministry of Finance, removing the procedure for approving investment policies will lead to a situation where investors do not know which procedure to start with to implement an investment project, especially for foreign investors and when implementing important investment projects with great impacts such as: airport projects, seaports, nuclear power projects, projects in areas sensitive to national security and defense...

In addition, the abolition of investment policy approval procedures will lead to a situation where specialized laws will have to prescribe additional procedures to review investment projects when implementing land allocation, land lease, land use purpose conversion, sea area allocation, construction and environmental licensing, etc., making administrative procedures more cumbersome and losing tools to control, inspect, monitor and evaluate overall investment projects.

Therefore, the procedure for approving investment policies is a necessary procedure in managing investment and business activities in Vietnam. The amendment and supplement to complete this regulation aims to remove difficulties and speed up the process of implementing investment policy approval procedures, ensuring consistency and synchronization with relevant legal provisions.

Therefore, the draft Investment Law (amended) has narrowed and clarified the scope of projects that must undergo investment policy approval. Accordingly, investment policy approval is only granted for infrastructure development investment projects in a number of important and sensitive areas such as seaports, airports, telecommunications, publishing, press, etc.; projects proposing to use land and sea areas; projects that have a major impact on the environment, potentially have a serious impact on the environment, or are implemented in areas that affect national defense and security, etc.

At the same time, the draft Law clearly stipulates exceptions for not carrying out procedures for approving investment policies in the following cases: Investors implementing investment projects in cases of land allocation and land lease through auctions of land use rights, bidding to select investors to implement projects using land (except for projects under the authority of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister to approve investment policies , large-scale projects with great impacts on the socio-economy such as airport projects, seaports, industrial parks, etc.); projects winning auctions for mineral exploitation rights; technical infrastructure projects of industrial clusters.

At the same time as narrowing down the list of investment policy approval procedures, the draft Law also simplifies the procedures.

The Economic and Financial Committee's review report recommends a thorough review, only considering cases that are absolutely necessary to follow the investment policy approval process. Continue to simplify and simplify the content of investment policy approval, clearly establishing the list of projects that must have investment policy approval; List of projects that do not need investment policy approval, but need investment registration; The remaining projects are projects that do not need investment policy approval , do not need investment registration.

Abolish procedures for approving foreign investment policies

Regarding foreign investment activities, the draft Law stipulates the simplification of foreign investment procedures to create openness and convenience for foreign investment activities, but still ensures the necessary control mechanism for foreign currency transfer activities abroad.

Accordingly, the draft Law abolishes the procedure for approving foreign investment policies (authority of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister).

At the same time, narrow down the scope of projects that must carry out procedures for granting a Certificate of Registration for Foreign Investment in the direction of only applying to projects with an investment capital of VND 20 billion (USD 760,000) or more or investment projects in the sectors and professions of foreign investment with conditions specified in Clause 1, Article 43 of this Law. For projects with a scale of less than VND 20 billion, it is only necessary to register foreign exchange transactions with the State Bank to transfer money abroad.

Regarding this content, the examining agency said that there are currently two opinions. The first opinion suggests keeping the regulations on foreign investment management as in the current Investment Law; however, it is possible to consider reforming administrative procedures, reducing compliance time and costs, and avoiding missing investment opportunities on the basis of careful selection.

The second type of opinion agrees to remove the procedure for approving foreign investment policies and the Certificate of registration of foreign investment. In this case, it is recommended that the drafting agency study and supplement regulations on the notification/registration regime for foreign investment information (not requiring approval from the state management agency) to serve post-audit work, coordinate with the State Bank to review and complete relevant legal regulations on foreign exchange management, and ensure the implementation of a database connection mechanism to allow capital transfers abroad in accordance with the notification/registration information.

In addition, the study assigned the Government to prescribe a ceiling level (20 billion VND) suitable to socio-economic conditions in each period.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/giam-21-nganh-nghe-kinh-doanh-co-dieu-kien-de-xuat-dua-thuong-mai-dien-tu-vao-danh-sach-siet-d414593.html