National Assembly approves "1 law amending 8 laws" to remove obstacles for 11 loss-making BOT projects

On the morning of June 25, with 432/434 delegates participating in the vote, the National Assembly passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Bidding; Law on Investment under the public-private partnership model; Law on Customs; Law on Value Added Tax; Law on Export Tax and Import Tax; Law on Investment; Law on Public Investment; Law on Management and Use of Public Assets (1 law amending 8 laws).

In particular, regarding the handling of difficulties in reducing revenue of BOT projects in the road sector signed before January 1, 2021, the addition of   provisions of the PPP Law   Regarding the mechanism for handling revenue reduction risks for BOT projects with contracts signed before the PPP Law takes effect, it will aim to implement uniformly, synchronously, and thoroughly handle difficulties.

The National Assembly approved "1 law amending 8 laws" to remove obstacles for 11 loss-making BOT projects.

Presenting a summary report on the reception, explanation, and revision of the draft law amending 8 laws, Minister of Finance Nguyen Van Thang said that according to the Government's statistics, there are 11 BOT traffic projects with reduced revenue. These projects are all ineffective projects, and the State must be responsible for handling them because most of the problems are due to objective reasons or the fault of the State agency, not the fault of the investor.

“Accordingly, taking into account the direction of competent authorities, the Government will issue a Decree detailing the ratio that the State shares with investors and PPP project enterprises on the difference between revenue in the financial plan and actual revenue; at the same time, specifying the sharing responsibilities of investors, project enterprises and lenders to ensure the principle of “harmonized benefits and shared risks”, as a basis for the Minister and Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee to decide on the application of this sharing mechanism”, said the Minister.

Regarding amendments and supplements to a number of articles of the Customs Law and the Value Added Tax Law to ensure consistency in the legal system on value added tax, the Government removes the provisions on value added tax from the content of Article 47a of the draft Customs Law and supplements the content of the amendments to the Value Added Tax Law in the draft Law as follows:

Article 4. Amend and supplement Point a, Clause 1, Article 9 of the Law on Value Added Tax as follows: “Exported goods include: goods from Vietnam sold to organizations and individuals abroad and consumed outside Vietnam; goods from domestic Vietnam sold to organizations in duty-free zones and consumed in duty-free zones to directly serve export production activities; goods sold in quarantine areas to individuals (foreigners or Vietnamese) who have completed exit procedures; goods sold at duty-free shops; goods exported on the spot”.

Minister of Finance Nguyen Van Thang.

Giving the reason, Minister Nguyen Van Thang said that according to the current VAT law (applied from 2013 to present), goods exported on the spot are subject to a 0% VAT rate. In order to stabilize the policy, create favorable conditions for on-site export and import activities, and to be consistent with the amendment of regulations on customs procedures for this case, it is necessary to add regulations that goods exported on the spot are subject to a 0% VAT rate.

“This regulation will ensure that there is no double tax collection and no impact on state budget revenue (total VAT revenue remains unchanged) while ensuring encouragement for on-site import and export activities, especially in the current context where it is necessary to create favorable conditions for business development,” said Mr. Thang.

Regarding amendments and supplements to a number of articles of the Investment Law, the draft Law has strongly decentralized the Prime Minister's authority to approve investment policies to the Provincial People's Committees for 07 groups of investment projects. At the same time, the draft Decree guiding the Investment Law will also simplify to the maximum the administrative procedures for approving investment policies and granting Investment Registration Certificates.

Regarding the reduction of conditional business lines and investment conditions, this is a content that has an impact on national defense, national security, social order and safety, social ethics, and public health. Currently, implementing the Government's direction, the Ministry of Finance has issued a document requesting ministries, branches, and localities to review and propose the reduction of conditional business lines and investment conditions and unnecessary business conditions.

Accordingly, these contents will be comprehensively reviewed to reduce and abolish them during the overall revision of the Investment Law at the October 2025 session.

Source: https://baohungyen.vn/quoc-hoi-chot-1-luat-sua-8-luat-go-vuong-cho-11-du-an-bot-thua-lo-3182026.html