According to the World Bank, Viet Nam cut five procedures and reduced the time required for business registration from 34 days to just six days after the adoption of the revised Law on Investment. As a result, the country’s business start-up index jumped about 60 notches.

All procedures and costs required for adjusting the business lines will abolished thanks to the removal of business lines from business registration certificates.

Under the revised Law on Investment, domestic investors shall not have to acquire investment certificates for their investment projects regardless of the business scale and domain while the time required for granting investment certificates shall be shortened down to 15 days instead of 45 days.

The revised law creates greater space for Vietnamese enterprises to choose business domains by expanding business activities to all sectors and domains that are not forbidden by the law.

The law also clearly stipulates the list of 267 conditional lines of business, said Mr. Cung, adding that the aforesaid positive changes are expected to open up a new reform process in Viet Nam.

Last May, the Government issued Resolution No. 19 covering nearly 50 solutions to improve the country’s business environment and national competitiveness in a bid to reduce costs for enforcing administrative procedures.

The resolution sets the target to improve the business environment to the average of the ASEAN-6 countries by the end of 2015.

Thanks to the Government’s drastic efforts, the time required for corporate tax and premium payment has been reduced to 170 hours/year from 872 hours earlier. Tax payment dossiers have been simplified and businesses can pay corporate tax on a quarterly basis instead of monthly basis.