The Government issued Decree No.9/2018/NĐ-CP defining the conditions on the establishment of retail activities of foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) in Viet Nam. 

Accordingly, FIEs which wish to establish the first retail outlet in Viet Nam must meet these conditions: (1) making financial plan to set up retail outlet, (2) not overdue tax debts of declarations when established in Viet Nam for more than one year, (3) locating retail outlet suitable with local planning schemes. 

The Decree stipulates that economic needs testing (ENT) criteria are applied to the establishment of the second and subsequent outlets unless the retail stores with size less than 500 m2, located at commercial centers and not ranked among convenience stores and supermarkets. 

ENT criteria include: 

1 – Affect of retail outlet market on the scale of the geographical area

2 – Number of retails outlets operating in the geographical area

3 – Affect of retail outlets on the stability of the market and operation of other retail outlets and traditional markets at the geographical area

4 – Retail outlet’s impacts on traffic, environmental sanitation and fire prevention at the geographical area

5 – Contributions of retail outlet to the region’s socio-economic development in fields of creating jobs for domestic workers, contributions to the development and modernization of the region’s retail sector, improvement of environment and living conditions for local people and contributions to the State budget. 

VGP