Those figures are enough to set a legislative record. Yet the more significant development is not the number of laws passed, but the shift in lawmaking philosophy.

From management to facilitation

Opening the 2025 Business Law Flow Report, Dau Anh Tuan, Deputy Secretary General and Head of the Legal Department of VCCI, spent less time discussing legislative statistics and more time highlighting a shift in mindset: from "management" to "facilitation."

One of the key messages emphasized was the need to "decisively abandon the mindset that if something cannot be managed, it should be banned." 

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

This suggests that institutions are no longer viewed merely as an internal function of the state apparatus. They are increasingly becoming 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 reforming lawmaking and law enforcement, and Resolution 68 on private sector development lies a common effort to expand development space rather than focus solely on risk control.

Where the priority task once centered on tighter regulation, it is now gradually shifting toward creating conditions for innovation, investment, and the emergence of new growth drivers.

If one policy could symbolize the reform spirit of 2025, it would likely be Resolution 206.

For the first time, the Government was granted a mechanism to address legal bottlenecks immediately rather than waiting for laws to be amended.

In less than eight months, 15 resolutions were issued under a "remove obstacles first, amend laws later" approach, demonstrating an effort to make the system more responsive to practical challenges.

The National Assembly passed 89 laws in a single year. The proportion of legal documents developed under expedited procedures rose to 43 percent.

However, the faster the pace of reform, the more pressing another question becomes: can the system absorb such rapid change?

According to VCCI, approximately 82 percent of implementing regulations were issued late or had yet to be issued. Only about 17 percent were released on schedule. Meanwhile, as many as 70.5 percent of businesses had never participated in commenting on draft legal documents at the central level, while about 93 percent said they could not anticipate upcoming policy changes.

The paradox is that while the legal system is changing at an unprecedented pace, most businesses remain outside the process that shapes those changes, leaving a significant gap between policymakers and policy implementers.

When reform meets bureaucratic inertia

Perhaps the most thought-provoking part of the report is what VCCI describes as the "2025 paradox: reform-oriented thinking struggling against management habits."

While regulators continue working to remove long-standing bottlenecks, new barriers still emerge elsewhere, as if bureaucratic inertia is moving in parallel with reform efforts.

VCCI illustrates the situation with a straightforward image: "The right hand removes business conditions while the left hand creates new barriers."

Few images better describe the current state of institutional reform.

Although businesses have responded positively to online administrative procedures, nearly 38 percent still reported having to pay unofficial costs, while about one-quarter had to delay or cancel business plans because of licensing obstacles.

These figures serve as a reminder of a familiar reality: changing regulations can happen quickly, but turning changes on paper into changes in practice is an entirely different challenge.

Another finding from VCCI is equally noteworthy.

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

Notably, 42 percent stemmed from unclear regulations or multiple interpretations, 36 percent from unnecessary compliance costs, and 22 percent from overlaps between legal documents.

Importantly, these issues do not reflect a shortage of laws. Rather, they reveal the gap between the logic of lawmakers and the operational realities faced by businesses.

For that reason, institutional reform, in VCCI's view, is not merely about revising individual provisions. It is also about narrowing the gap between what is written in legal texts and what is actually happening in the marketplace.

Lan Anh