In 2025 alone, Vietnam's National Assembly passed 89 laws. Combined with the legislative output of 2024, a total of 120 laws were either newly enacted or amended over the two-year period - more than the total number adopted during the previous eight years combined.

Those figures are enough to set a legislative record. Yet what matters even more than the number of laws passed is the shift in lawmaking philosophy taking place behind them.

From control to enabling growth

In his opening remarks presenting the 2025 Business Law Flow Report, Dau Anh Tuan, Deputy Secretary General and Head of the Legal Department at VCCI, spent little time discussing legislative statistics. Instead, he focused on a deeper transformation in governance thinking - a shift from "management" to "facilitation."

One message stood out clearly: the need to "decisively abandon the mindset that what cannot be managed must be prohibited."

Few statements capture the evolution of Vietnam's institutional framework over the past year more accurately.

It is no coincidence that VCCI opened its report with the assertion that "institutions are the breakthrough of breakthroughs." According to the organization, a significant share of Vietnam's more than 8 percent economic growth in 2025 stemmed from institutional reforms, improvements in the business environment and efforts to strengthen the private sector.

Institutional reform is no longer viewed as an internal task of the state apparatus. It is increasingly being recognized as a development resource as important as capital, technology or infrastructure.

Behind Resolution 57 on science, technology and innovation, Resolution 59 on international integration, Resolution 66 on legal reform and enforcement, and Resolution 68 on private sector development lies a broader effort to expand opportunities for growth rather than focusing solely on risk control.

Where policymaking once prioritized tighter regulation, the emphasis is gradually shifting toward creating conditions for innovation, investment and the emergence of new growth drivers.

If there is one reform that symbolized the spirit of 2025, it may well be Resolution 206.

For the first time, the government was granted authority to address legal bottlenecks immediately rather than waiting for lengthy legislative amendments.

In less than eight months, 15 resolutions were issued under a "resolve first, amend later" approach, reflecting an effort to make the legal system more responsive to real-world challenges.

Eighty-nine laws were approved in a single year, while the share of legal documents drafted under expedited procedures rose to 43 percent.

Yet the faster reforms move, the more urgent another question becomes: can the system absorb change at the same pace?

According to VCCI, roughly 82 percent of implementing regulations were either delayed or had not yet been issued. Only around 17 percent were released on schedule.

Meanwhile, 70.5 percent of businesses reported that they had never participated in consultations on draft legislation at the central level, while nearly 93 percent said they were unable to anticipate upcoming policy changes.

The paradox is striking. While the legal system is evolving faster than ever before, most businesses remain outside the process that shapes those changes. As a result, the gap between policymakers and policy implementers remains substantial.

When reform meets bureaucratic inertia

Perhaps the most thought-provoking part of the report is what VCCI describes as "The 2025 paradox: reformist thinking wrestling with administrative habits."

While government agencies continue to dismantle long-standing barriers, new obstacles still emerge in other areas, suggesting that bureaucratic inertia is moving in parallel with reform efforts.

VCCI illustrated the problem with a vivid image: "One hand removes business conditions, while the other hand creates new barriers."

Few descriptions capture the current state of institutional reform more accurately.

Although businesses have generally welcomed digital administrative procedures, nearly 38 percent still reported paying informal costs. About one-quarter said they had delayed or cancelled business plans because of licensing obstacles.

Those figures serve as a familiar reminder: changing regulations can happen quickly, but turning legal reform into practical change on the ground is an entirely different challenge.

Another finding from VCCI is equally revealing.

Among more than 2,000 complaints and recommendations reviewed nationwide, only around 787 cases were identified as genuine regulatory obstacles requiring intervention.

Of these, 42 percent stemmed from unclear regulations or rules subject to multiple interpretations. Another 36 percent resulted from unnecessary compliance costs, while 22 percent arose from overlaps among different legal documents.

What is noteworthy is that these obstacles do not reflect a shortage of laws. Rather, they reveal a disconnect between the logic of lawmakers and the realities faced by businesses.

For VCCI, institutional reform therefore goes beyond revising individual provisions. It is also about narrowing the gap between what is written in legal texts and what is happening in the marketplace.

Behind every legal bottleneck may stand a business waiting for approval, a delayed project, an investment yet to be disbursed or simply a missed commercial opportunity quietly slipping away.

Viewed from that perspective, the most important legacy of 2025 may not be the passage of 89 laws, but the fact that Vietnam has begun experimenting with a new approach - making institutions respond more quickly to the realities of development.

After years of complaints that the system moved too slowly, the question is no longer whether reform is taking place.

The real question now is whether government agencies, businesses and the broader economy can keep pace with the speed of that reform.

Lan Anh