Legalize e-commerce for healthy development

At the policy consultation conference on the development of the Law on E-commerce on April 9, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien emphasized that e-commerce plays an important role in Vietnam's market economy. In recent years, Vietnam's e-commerce has developed very strongly. The scale of the e-commerce retail market currently ranks third in Southeast Asia, reaching about 25 billion USD. Of the total scale of 36 billion USD of Vietnam's digital economy, e-commerce accounts for 2/3. Notably, in terms of growth rate, Vietnam is currently ranked 5th in the world.

To manage this field, the Government has recently issued Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP dated May 16, 2013 on e-commerce and Decree No. 85/2021/ND-CP dated September 25, 2021 amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 52/2013/ND-CP.

However, according to Minister Nguyen Hong Dien, the rapid development of science and technology, along with the emergence of new business models, diverse in subjects and complex in nature, has led to many challenges in state management of e-commerce.

Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien chaired a policy consultation conference on the development of the Law on E-commerce.

Since then, current policies and regulations have revealed problems that need to be addressed, such as: the legality of legal documents is still low and there is a lack of sanctions to handle violations; there are no regulations to regulate new e-commerce models, including platforms based on big data, artificial intelligence and commerce via social networks.

In addition, there is a lack of specific mechanisms for e-commerce participants, especially in determining rights and obligations. This makes it difficult to handle violations, creating an increased risk of commercial fraud and tax evasion.

"The Ministry of Industry and Trade finds it necessary to recommend that the National Assembly, the Government and competent authorities soon develop and promulgate the Law on E-commerce to regulate and manage this field," Minister Nguyen Hong Dien emphasized.

Reporting at the conference, Ms. Le Hoang Oanh - Director of the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said that the ministry has developed 5 sets of documents to serve the proposal to build the Law on E-commerce, which will be made public from January 17, 2025 to collect public opinions according to regulations.

Based on the summary of practices and impact assessment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed 5 major policy groups, including: perfecting legal concepts; clearly defining forms of activities, subjects participating in e-commerce and state management responsibilities; regulating the responsibilities of units providing e-commerce support services; electronic contract certification services; and policies for developing green and sustainable e-commerce.

Before the conference, the ministry sought opinions from ministries, sectors and localities and received high consensus on the proposed policies. At the conference, delegates from the National Assembly and relevant agencies continued to affirm the necessity of enacting the law, and at the same time gave opinions on contents such as cross-border e-commerce management, the role of intermediaries, specific operating models, etc.

Concluding the conference, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien acknowledged the enthusiastic opinions and assigned the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy to receive and complete the dossier to submit to competent authorities, include it in the law and ordinance building program for 2025 and submit it to the National Assembly at the year-end session.

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Source: https://doanhnghiepvn.vn/chuyen-doi-so/kinh-te-so/luat-hoa-thuong-mai-dien-tu-de-phat-trien-lanh-manh/20250410100624021