Experts doubt MOIT’s new rules will free up businesses

MOIT, which is drafting a decree on amending Decree 19 on gas trading, has decided, for example, to remove the requirements which many traders have complained about. Gas distributors will not have to own gas tanks, gas supply stations and other kinds of facilities. 

MOIT is also considering removing business conditions related to the operation of goods exchanges and franchise. The requirements which deeply intervene in business operations related to tobacco and petrol products will also be removed.

However, Lawyer Truong Thanh Duc, president of Basico Law Firm, said there are issues that need to be clarified.

Of the 675 business conditions MOIT promised to cut, 215 are about food trading. There are 350 business conditions in the field, mostly stipulated in Decree 77. Duc noted that to remove 215 conditions, MOIT has combined some conditions.

In the Article 26 stipulating conditions for production workshops, for example, MOIT merges three stipulations to create one condition. 

Similarly, the condition related to the tools and equipment for food production comprises five sub-conditions and MOIT plans to merge three sub-conditions. This means that the five sub-conditions will still exist, though only two sub-conditions are shown on paper. 

Duc pointed out that many conditions would be removed this way. 

The conditions on vegetable oil, beer and dairy have the sharpest cuts. However, in fact, most of the conditions are stipulated in the ‘general conditions to ensure food safety for food production facilities’. This means that businesses will still have to satisfy the requirements.

Also according to Duc, in many cases, the removal has no significance, because MOIT cut conditions which businesses automatically have to satisfy and there is no need to stipulate these in laws.

For instance, businesses have to ‘have a valid website and domain name, and comply with regulations on the management of information on the Internet’.

“Businesses have a domain name even though they are not asked to do that, because they can't operate without it,” Duc explained.

Nguyen Quang Dong, an expert on public policy, said he has also found problems related to business conditions MOIT decided to cut.

“The cutting needs to have real significance. The business conditions that place difficulties for businesses must be cut,” Dong said.

MOIT plans to remove some requirements on rice businesses, but the two major problems related to storehouses and compulsory reserves still exist.