Behind this decision is a years-long story of factories unable to operate, projects worth trillions of dong stuck in limbo, and businesses wanting to comply but not knowing how.

When debates regarding FPF appeared in the press a few years ago, a teacher in Hanoi emailed VietNamNet and complained that she had just built two houses to open a private kindergarten. The houses had been renovated, the money had been spent, and teachers had been recruited. However, the school could not operate due to the FPF regulations.

“There are requirements I really don’t know how to meet. For example, I must add an external escape staircase. But the house is in an alley, with limited space and I have nowhere to build it,” she said.

The two houses just lay there. Each month, rent, loan interest, and upkeep costs burn through hundreds of millions of dong.

Difficulties related to FPF do not merely emerge at private kindergartens, boarding houses, or small business households, but have also spread to manufacturing enterprises and foreign investors.

In 2023, the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam (JCCI) said that at least 18 projects with a total value of VND3,097 billion were affected by snags during the FPF design appraisal and acceptance processes.

Many factories and warehouses had been completed but could not be put into operation. Many construction works could not be handed over to developers despite being finished.

In 2023, authorities identified approximately 38,000 establishments that failed to satisfy FPF standards, and they had to stop or temporarily suspend operations for remediation.

With tens of thousands of establishments affected, the FPF story has gone far beyond the scope of isolated cases and become an issue of the investment, manufacturing, and business environment.

A VCCI leader once described this situation with a thought-provoking image: “The right hand removes business conditions, whereas the left hand creates new barriers.”

The controversies surrounding FPF are perhaps the clearest example.

The messages of enterprises

When controversies over FPF reached their peak, Pham Thi Ngoc Thuy, executive director of the Office of the Private Economic Development Research Board (Board IV), was one of the individuals who most closely followed the feedback from the business community.

She said enterprises do not oppose the goal of enhancing fire and explosion safety; what they ponder over is that there are regulations that even when they want to comply with, they do not know how to execute correctly.

In multiple working sessions with enterprises, Board IV recorded cases where factories were constructed in accordance with prevailing regulations, yet upon completion, they had to satisfy new requirements. 

There were works that had operated for many years but faced newly arising remediation requirements that were almost impossible to execute under real-world conditions.

According to Thuy, if they had to wait for the amendment of the entirety of codes and circulars before untangling the snags, many enterprises might not possess enough strength to survive until the day the new regulations take effect.

When petitions are heard

The fact that Prime Minister Le Minh Hung directed a review of the entire system of FPF standards and the decision to drop acceptance for projects whose designs have been appraised, show that petitions from enterprises have been heard.

What Hung requested is to review the entire system of FPF standards to ensure safety, but, simultaneously, it must align with reality and reduce compliance costs for citizens and enterprises.

The goal of the Government is not purely to subtract an administrative stamp, but to handle the social costs arising from regulations that no longer align with reality.

As of now, the Hanoi teacher still cannot open the school she invested heavily in.

But it is stories like hers that have forced regulators to re-question the feasibility of many fire safety rules in force.

No one wants to trade safety for growth, but no one wants invested resources to sit idle because of requirements that even willing compliers do not know how to follow correctly.

The removal of fire safety acceptance from July 1 raises a question: how can rules created to protect society avoid unintentionally becoming barriers for those who want to invest, do business, and contribute to society’s development?

Tu Giang