Create maximum favorable conditions for business development

On the afternoon of April 24, continuing the 44th Session, under the direction of Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Vu Hong Thanh, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Enterprises.

Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Vu Hong Thanh chaired the meeting. Photo: Ho Long

Strengthening digital applications to improve the business investment environment

Presenting the Draft Law, Minister of Finance Nguyen Van Thang affirmed that the amended and supplemented provisions in the draft Law comply with the principles of ensuring freedom of business, reforming administrative procedures, improving the investment and business environment and enhancing the effectiveness of state management of enterprises. Specifically, the provisions allow the use of personal identification and organizational identification to replace all traditional documents in business registration. Thereby, abolishing two contents helps reduce the documents that enterprises and individuals must submit and simplify the information that enterprises must declare to the business registration agency.

Regarding corporate governance, the draft Law amends and supplements 21 contents (amends 14 contents, supplements 7 contents) related to: clarifying and unifying the concepts and contents stipulated in the Law; amending a number of contents related to corporate governance; amending a number of regulations to enhance the responsibility of agencies and localities in state management of enterprises, especially "post-audit" to minimize virtual capital, fake capital, increase transparency in business operations; promoting the integration and sharing of information among state management agencies.

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Committee Phan Van Mai speaks. Photo: Ho Long

To meet international commitments on anti-money laundering according to the National Action Plan on Anti-Money Laundering for the period 2021 - 2025, the draft Law amends and supplements 24 contents (amending 14 contents, supplementing 10 contents) on providing, storing and sharing information related to beneficial owners of enterprises.

“The new regulations and additions to this content do not create administrative procedures and reduce compliance costs for businesses,” the Minister of Finance affirmed.

Presenting the Report on the review of the draft Law, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Committee Phan Van Mai said that the Standing Committee of the Economic and Financial Committee agreed with the necessity, political basis and practical basis of amending the Enterprise Law as stated in Submission No. 259/TTr - CP.

However, the Standing Committee of the Economic and Financial Committee requested the Agency to draft a report, clarifying the impact of administrative procedures and compliance costs when prescribing additional responsibilities for declaring information about beneficial owners when carrying out procedures for registering business establishment and notifying changes to business registration contents, especially regarding conditions to ensure the level of meeting the requirements of administrative procedure reform, improving the investment and business environment to increase the persuasiveness of the proposed amendments and supplements.

In the Preliminary Review Report of the Law Project, the Standing Committee of the Economic and Financial Committee also expressed its views on a number of specific contents of the draft Law, including: regulations related to “beneficial owners”; private offering of bonds (Article 128 of the Law on Enterprises amended and supplemented according to the provisions of Clause 19, Article 1 of the draft Law); amendments and supplements to a number of regulations on market entry of enterprises, corporate governance and state management; institutionalization of Resolution No. 12-NQ/TW on the ratio of state capital controlling in enterprises (Article 88 of the Law on Enterprises)...

Write simply, easy to understand, easy to remember, easy to do

Permanent Deputy Head of the People's Aspirations and Supervision Committee Le Thi Nga speaks. Photo: Ho Long

Speaking at the meeting, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man suggested that agencies continue to adhere to the spirit of the Resolution of the 11th Central Conference to complete the draft Law. For state-owned enterprises, it is necessary to continue to innovate and improve the operations of state-owned enterprises, focusing on key and essential areas where the private sector does not participate or participates ineffectively. Equitize state-owned enterprises in a transparent and public manner, ensuring the rights of investors to strengthen corporate governance according to international practices. Separate the state management function and the state capital ownership function in enterprises to improve management and supervision efficiency.

Regarding private enterprises, the National Assembly Chairman noted, encouraged and created favorable conditions for enterprises to develop; considering this an important driving force of the economy. Ensuring an equal, transparent business environment, healthy competition among economic sectors, without discrimination. At the same time, supporting private enterprises in accessing capital, land, technology, and markets; promoting science and technology, innovation and digital transformation to improve the competitiveness of enterprises.

Minister of Finance Nguyen Van Thang presents the Draft Law. Photo: Ho Long

In addition, according to the National Assembly Chairman, at the Ninth Session, the National Assembly will consider many draft laws amending and supplementing a number of articles of current laws, or consider a number of draft laws amended many times, placing high requirements on ensuring the consistency of the legal system.

Therefore, the amendment and supplementation of the Enterprise Law is in the spirit of creating the most favorable conditions for business development, continuing to cut and simplify administrative procedures, cutting costs for businesses; carefully reviewing options, carefully designing reasonable regulations, not creating additional pressure on business operations. Implementing the spirit of innovation in law-making; issues under the authority of the National Assembly are stipulated in the law, issues under the authority of the Government and ministries are separated.

Regarding regulations related to “beneficial owners”, the National Assembly Chairman suggested reviewing and ensuring conceptual consistency with the Law on Anti-Money Laundering; clarifying the concepts of indirect ownership of enterprise charter capital, indirect receipt of dividends or after-tax profits of enterprises... written simply, easy to understand, easy to remember, easy to implement.

Conditions for private bond offerings have been tightened, with better risk control such as: controlling payment conditions, debt payment, financial safety ratio, safety guarantee ratio in operations, etc. At the same time, the draft Law is also proposing to add conditions on the ratio of debt payable to equity. According to the provisions of Clause 19, Article 1, there must be debt payable including the value of bonds expected to be issued not exceeding 5 times the equity of the issuing organization.

Permanent Vice Chairwoman of the Committee for Petitions and Supervision Le Thi Nga suggested that it is necessary to provide a basis for the regulation on conditions for controlling the private offering of bonds as mentioned above. Because the stability of enterprises also depends on many factors such as competitiveness in the market, market risks, not just based on the amount of debt payable. “The nature of corporate bonds is a form of investment. Before deciding to invest, bond buyers need to evaluate and take responsibility for the risks when buying private bonds. On the other hand, the rigid debt ratio regulation is disadvantageous to large enterprises that invest in many sectors, because these enterprises often have large charter capital and higher debt than small enterprises,” noted Permanent Vice Chairwoman of the Committee Le Thi Nga.

In addition, the Vice Chairman of the People's Aspirations and Supervision Committee also proposed to add Clause 4, Article 16 on electronic identification as a type of legal document to create maximum convenience for individuals and businesses.

Concluding this content, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Vu Hong Thanh highly appreciated the Economic and Financial Committee for coordinating with the Ministry of Finance and relevant agencies to complete the draft Law dossier to submit to the National Assembly Standing Committee at this session.

Basically agreeing with the contents of the draft Law, the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly stated that the draft Law basically inherits the positive points of the current Law; at the same time, focuses on handling issues to suit the new context; requests the Drafting Committee to study the opinions at the meeting, especially the opinions of the Chairman of the National Assembly, to revise and perfect the provisions of the draft Law.

Thanh Hai

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/tao-dieu-kien-thuan-loi-toi-da-cho-doanh-nghiep-phat-trien-post411319.html