Amending the Telecommunications Law to create a foundation for the development of digital economy and digital society

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung stated that the development of the revised Telecommunications Law project is consistent with the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress and Resolution 29-NQ/TW dated November 17, 2022 of the 13th Party Central Committee. In which, it is affirmed that digital infrastructure is essential, ensuring network information security is key, prioritizing rapid development investment, being one step ahead and the Party's guidelines and policies, Resolutions of the National Assembly and the Government.

According to Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, after more than 12 years of application, the Telecommunications Law and its guiding documents have created a legal corridor to promote competition, creating conditions for businesses to participate in the market. However, in addition to the achieved results, the Telecommunications Law has revealed limitations and inadequacies, not suitable for the new context with many changes, requiring a comprehensive amendment of the law to build a legal corridor suitable for new requirements and overcome difficulties in implementation and state management in recent times.

Amending the telecommunications law to create a foundation for the development of digital society and digital economy, Figure 1 — Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung, authorized by the Prime Minister , presented the Report on the draft Law on Telecommunications (amended).

Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said that the law is aimed at fully institutionalizing the Party's policy on developing a market economy with state regulation in telecommunications activities, developing telecommunications infrastructure and other infrastructures to create a foundation for the development of the digital economy and digital society.

At the same time, overcome institutional problems, policy loopholes, and inadequacies in the provisions of the 2009 Telecommunications Law and legal provisions related to telecommunications activities that limit the development process. Ensure the consistency, synchronization, and feasibility of this Law with the legal system, in accordance with international commitments to which Vietnam is a member, and simplify administrative procedures. Supplement regulations on new contents, in accordance with the trend of telecommunications development, the trend of convergence, and the formation of digital infrastructure - the infrastructure of the digital economy.

Regarding the specific content, the Minister said that the draft Law consists of 10 chapters and 74 articles. Accordingly, the draft Law stipulates the form of licensing and licensing conditions in the direction of: simplifying procedures, encouraging market entry for some telecommunications services without network infrastructure; stipulating strict licensing conditions for cases of providing services with network infrastructure, using telecommunications resources and satellite networks to ensure safety and security.

Amending the telecommunications law to create a foundation for the development of digital society, image 2 — Overview of the meeting.

The draft also focuses on regulating new issues to promote telecommunications development such as: Identifying data center infrastructure and cloud computing as an important part of digital infrastructure; Regulating the provision of telecommunications services via satellite according to the principle of strict management, ensuring national security and sovereignty, in accordance with international commitments; Regulating wholesale activities in telecommunications to ensure the promotion of a healthy and sustainable competitive telecommunications market.

In addition, the draft also adds regulations on the management of basic telecommunications services on the internet (OTT telecommunications services) according to the principle of facilitating development but with management to ensure the rights of users, safety and security. For new contents that may arise in the future such as new generation internet, new telecommunications operating models, the draft Law adds regulations assigning the authority to the Government to issue new regulatory regulations according to the principle of being consistent with the existing general provisions of the Law.

In addition, the draft Law inherits the provisions of the current Law on maintaining the Vietnam Public Telecommunications Service Fund. In the process of completing the draft Law, we will continue to review to overcome the shortcomings of the Fund's implementation in the previous period, ensuring no overlap with the content and expenditure tasks of the State budget, specifically: clearly defining the Fund's support objectives, regulations on contributions and disbursements are implemented according to the principle of corresponding revenue and expenditure, if there is no expenditure task, no revenue will be collected to avoid Fund surplus.

Also according to the Minister, on the basis of reviewing the amended and supplemented contents, the draft Law stipulates separate enforcement for regulations on management of new services and transitional regulations for licenses granted under the 2009 Telecommunications Law to ensure feasibility in the implementation process and protect the rights and interests of licensed enterprises.

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