VietNamNet Bridge – The compilers of the draft to amend the investment and enterprise laws plan to cut the number of conditional business fields to 365 from 398.

The government is going to submit the draft to the National Assembly in the November working session.

Conditional business fields are sectors in which businessmen must satisfy certain requirements to be able to keep their operation. The enterprises in the sectors must be granted licenses from management agencies to become operational.

Enterprises in other fields do not have to obtain the licenses or certificates. They only need to make business registration at competent agencies to become operational.

Licensing scheme

Phan Duc Hieu from the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM) commented that many conditions and requirements set by state management agencies are “unreasonable” and “unnecessary”.

Job service companies, for example, are required to have three years of experience in the field, have at least three workers with junior college degree, and pay VND300 million in security money at banks.

“How can a business get experience if it cannot enter society?” Hieu said.

He said it was an unreasonable requirement to ask transport firms to have at least five vehicles.

“Why do they have to have five vehicles? They will still be able to provide high quality services with four taxis only,” he said.

“The unreasonable requirements have existed as barriers that prevent investors from joining markets,” he said, adding that it was necessary to eliminate them.

The compilers of the draft discovered there were 398 conditional business fields, of which 33 fields need to be excluded from the list.

Le Duy Binh, an independent analyst, who carried out research work on the number of conditional business fields and the number of licenses that enterprises must obtain from management agencies, pointed out that the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) is a state management agency which sets the highest number of conditions for enterprises to join the market.

Sixty-eight branches put under the ministry’s management are listed as conditional business fields.

The second position belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Transport and the State Bank of Vietnam. The position at the bottom of the list belongs to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI).

However, Bui Anh Tuan, deputy head of the MPI Business Registration Agency, said the figures released by Binh had become out of date.

“We have found 413 conditional business fields, while ministries are going to add another 12 branches on the list of conditional business fields, so the figure would be 425 in the future,” Tuan said.

Barriers

Thang thinks that only the business fields which relate to human’s health and safety should be listed as “conditional business fields”.

The writers of the draft are determined to remove barriers from preventing businesses joining the market, but they also know they face obstacles as well.

Dr. Le Dang Doanh, a renowned economist, noted that the licensing scheme helps ministries and state management agencies “make money”, and therefore, they would not agree on the removal of the scheme.

Pham Huyen