12. Viet Nam
This chapter presents the country profile for Viet Nam. It provides an overview of the current de jure requirements for the institutions, tools and processes of regulatory governance and, where possible, how these have been implemented in practice. The profile focus on three aspects of regulatory governance pertinent to the past, present and near future of regulatory reforms in the ASEAN region. The first is whole-of-government approaches to regulatory policy making, including national and international commitments to better regulation that are driving domestic reform processes. The second is the use of good regulatory practices, including regulatory impact assessments (RIAs), stakeholder engagement and ex post review. The third is approaches to digitalisation, or how countries are using digital tools to respond to regulatory challenges, and is the newest frontier for better regulation reforms in both ASEAN and OECD communities. The information contained in this and the other profiles serves as the basis for the analysis of trends in regulatory reform presented in Chapter 1.
Regional focus
Viet Nam is a signatory to both the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), both containing provisions regarding regulatory quality. In addition to tariff cuts, CPTPP contains provisions on, among others, customs and trade facilitation; standards and technical barriers to trade; investment; services; intellectual property; e-commerce; procurement; labour; environmental issues; regulatory coherence; and others (OECD, 2021[1]). Vietnam has been revising various legal documents to make way for the implementation of these FTAs, such as the Labour Code and the Law on Intellectual Properties.
Viet Nam has further adopted good regulatory practices through its commitment to the Renewed APEC Agenda for Structural Reforms (RAASR) 2016–2020. Viet Nam identified 6 priorities in its RAASR Individual Action Plan (IAP) submission in 2016 and subsequent revision, namely (APEC, 2018[2]):
1. Improving competition policy to enhance the efficiency of resource allocation and utilisation in key economic sectors;
3. Improving investment-business environment to strengthen microeconomic foundation;
5. Promoting the contribution of service sector to the economic development; and,
Under priority 4, Viet Nam has strengthened its stakeholder engagement provisions by requiring that all policies and regulations receive comments from the public as well as the business community. Comments can be provided via online platform, written submissions or during attendance at workshops (APEC, 2018[2]).
Viet Nam has also made efforts to contribute to regulatory coherence in the region by harmonising national standards with regional and international standards. As of 2020, Viet Nam’s national standard system (TCVN) had nearly 13,000 standards, approximately 60% of which have been harmonised with international and regional standards, contributing to effectively supporting socio-economic development in many fields (Ministry of Science and Technology, 2020[3]).
Viet Nam also entered into agreements to increase its participation in regional and global value chains. These include 49 Bilateral Investment Treaties and 20 Treaties with Investment Provisions which were in force as of 2019. Another recent effort was the EVFTA agreement with the European Union. Immediately after the EVFTA Agreement took effect on August 6, 2020, the Prime Minister issued Decision No.1201/QD-TTg on the approval for the implementation plan of the Free Trade Agreement between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the European Union (EVFTA) including 5 main groups of solutions as follows: information propagation and dissemination about EVFTA Agreement and markets of EU countries; development of legal documents; competitiveness improvement and human resources development; guidelines and policies for trade unions and labour organisations at enterprise establishments; and policies on social security, environmental protection and sustainable development (MPI, 2021[4]).
Recently in 2021, the Prime Minister also issued Decision No. 38/QD-TTg, which would reform quality control and SPS control of imported goods. This decision would not only assign Vietnam custom agencies as focal points for quality and SPS control of imported goods, but it would also make it easier for businesses to comply with relevant laws and undergo less strict measures after already seeing through previous deep inspections. Decision No. 38/QD-TTg would also add features of automatic risk-based categorisation of goods and would exempt some imported goods from controls. The approval of the Decision in total is expected to deliver a cost saving of USD 399 million for the economy in one year. The Government is drafting a decree to lay the legal foundation for this reform effort.
Finally, Viet Nam will also look towards integrating its National Single Window, which was launched in 2014, with the ASEAN Single Window (ASW). Through integration with the ASW, the conceptual model of the Viet Nam National Single Window demonstrates linkages between the following six major components in international trade and transport (ASEAN Single Window, n.d.[5]):
Viet Nam Customs being responsible for clearance and release of importation, exportation and transit of goods and conveyances;
Regulatory government agencies involved in international trade and transport;
Business community involved in international trade; and ASEAN members and other global trading partners.
Viet Nam has been joining the joint live operation of the ASW since January 2018. Various ministries have changed their regulations in accordance with Single Window mechanism, most noticeably Ministry of Health with over 30 trade administrative procedures conducted in single window manner.
National focus
Reform and reduction of regulatory and administrative procedure burdens continue to be Vietnam’s top priorities and are led by the Administrative Procedure Control Agency (APCA), inside the Office of the Government (OOG) (OECD, 2018[6]). The APCA was initially set up to implement Project 30 (2007-10), which took stock of over 6 000 administrative procedures and ultimately reduced administrative procedure costs within the Government that were equivalent to USD 1.6 billion per year. The achievements from this initial project then contributed to a second wave, which oversaw the reduction and simplification of 3 893 business conditions, as well as 6 776 import-export related regulations. The conclusions from the second wave resulted in a savings of USD 260 million per year.
Viet Nam is now in its third wave for regulatory burden reduction (2020-2025) and these efforts are stipulated in the Resolution 68/NQ-CP (Resolution 68) on the programme of cutting or simplifying business regulations (see Box 12.1 for more information). Co-ordinated by the OOG/APCA, this is resulting in the entire regulatory system being reviewed for simplification.
Viet Nam has also continued to improve its regulatory environment since 2018 as part of its target to become a developed and high-income country by 2045. Regulatory reform plays an important role in Viet Nam’s visions for development, which include (Vu, 2021[7]):
1. Creating a favourable business environment for all economic sectors;
2. Digital transformation-based sustainable growth with a focus on environment protection, climate change adaptation, and increasing labour productivity;
4. Building technology-based economy with further integration into the world’s economy; and,
5. Pursuing self-resilient diplomacy, multilateralism, and being a responsible member of the international community.
Viet Nam has also seen sectoral applications of good regulatory practice. Law No. 04/2017/QH14 on Support for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME Support Law) was introduced in 2018 and focused on supporting SMEs by 1) Developing a Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) sector development policy 2) refining the MSME definition in Vietnam 3) Enhancing the functions of SME Development Promotion Council and 4) Establishing the SME Development Fund (ADB, 2020[8]). The SME Support Law covers many different policy areas – from taxation to access to finance, from innovation to value chain development – although there are still some areas that lack sufficient attention (e.g. SME digitalisation) and others where results have not yet been successful (e.g. the conversion of household businesses into formally registered enterprises (OECD, 2021[9]). Good regulatory practice can be found throughout the provisions set by the law, including simplified tax administrative procedures and accounting regimes for micro-enterprises) and publication of relevant policy information on the national SME web portal and ministerial websites. The government of Viet Nam releases an annual report which monitors progress on the implementation of the SME Support Law (OECD, 2021[9]). Also, in 2018, the Government also issued Decree No. 108/2018/ND-CP to amend and supplement a number of articles of the Government’s Decree No. 78/2015/ND-CP of 14 September 2015 on enterprise registration, which would simplify the registration processes for businesses.
The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is the relevant line ministry for putting forth draft laws and ordinances relating to business and investments (OECD, 2018[6]). Overseen by the MPI is the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), which is the national-level administrative agency in charge of investment promotion and facilitation in the country and is charged with regulatory functions, among others. These include participating in drafting, amending and supplementing legislative documents on foreign investment in Vietnam and outward investment activities of Vietnamese investors, and assessing applications for investment in sensitive projects in Vietnam (for example: casinos, gambling, and so forth) (World Bank, 2019[10]). The FIA is also responsible for managing the National Foreign Investment Information System of web portals on procedures for issuance of the Investment Registration Certificate; posting and updating legislative documents, policies, investment conditions applied to foreign investors; and updating information about investment promotion and foreign investment in Vietnam (World Bank, 2019[10]).
Regulatory impact assessments
OECD (2018[6]) notes that the Law on Promulgation and Legal Normative Documents (“Law on Laws”), introduced in 2008 updated in 2015 and amended in 2020, announced the obligation for all levels of government to conduct (Vietnam National Assembly, 2015[11]) regulatory impact assessments (RIA) when developing legal documents.1 This Law would require that RIAs review the economic, social, gender, legal and/or administrative impacts of draft regulatory proposals. The Laws on Law also appointed the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) as the responsible body for co-ordinating and assessing law making projects. Decree 63/2010/ND-CP grants the APCA the role for monitoring impact assessments related to administrative procedures, including reporting periodically to the Prime Minister on the outcomes of administrative procedure reforms.
Impact assessment reports are published on a website of the National Assembly (for laws) and MOJ and relevant ministries (for lower-level legal documents). According to Article 8 of Decree 34/2016/ND-CP, the agency proposing the law-making project is required to draft a RIA report before drafting the legal document, and seek opinions and critiques of the draft RIA. Usually, RIAs are published online together other documents of the law-making proposal (review report, official letter) as required by the Article 36 of the Law on Laws 2015.
In general, ministries do use information and data collected during consultations for impact assessment, especially data collected from law implementation reviews. For example, when the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and OOG used the data they collected from consultation with agribusinesses to quantify impacts of existing regulations and propose revisions for reform proposals submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in December 2021. From this action, Resolution 68 was implemented and business regulations were simplified and reduced.
In terms of support and guidance for regulatory impact assessment, a technical guide on regulatory impact assessments is available for policymakers to use. The guidance was developed by the MOJ in co-operation with USAID2 (OECD, 2018[6]). To develop Viet Nam’s technical RIA guide, policymakers used regional and international practices as reference points (e.g. the OECD Guiding Principles on RIA and examples from Australia, South Korea and the United Kingdom (OECD, 2018[6]). Moreover, a RIA task force was established in the Ministry of Justice to act as a central body to co-ordinate the implementation of Decree 24/2009/ND-CP at the beginning stage (ERIA, 2016[12]). Many capacity building workshops for ministries and non-government stakeholders had been conducted, the majority of which were held regularly, in order to improve the quality of, and the capacity to, review RIAs (ERIA, 2016[12]). In terms of administrative procedures, Viet Nam has also published Circular 02/2017/TT-VPCP, which provides detailed guidance on how to conduct impact assessment of administrative procedures and calculate administrative costs imposed by regulations.
The use of RIA in Viet Nam has demonstrated to have an impact on how decision makers resolve to a final policy. With the development of Viet Nam’s 2017 SME Support Law. OECD (OECD, 2018[6]) notes that RIA helped quantify the costs and benefits of different proposed policy measures, such as the reduction of corporate income taxes applicable to SMEs, support for household businesses to register as legal entity, support to SMEs to innovate and to become part of industry clusters or global value chains. RIA has also helped to enrich debates and consultations on the draft law at provincial, ministry and National Assembly level.
When a RIA has been completed, the results of the RIA are shared on the relevant Government body’s websites.3 The RIA is also used to help lead legislative debates as well as stakeholder consultations. Once the RIA process has concluded a drafting committee must then produce a RIA report to demonstrate that they have considered extensive perspectives and that all relevant stakeholder questions have been responded too. It is only after this point that a drafting committee can then move forward with drafting the legal document.
Stakeholder engagement
The Laws and Laws also introduced detailed requirements for public consultations (ERIA, 2016[12]). For example. Article 6,4 Article 345 and Article 356 of the Law has stated in various degrees, the Government’s responsibility to consult with stakeholders (internal and external) for any law except when there are shortened procedures (Vietnam National Assembly, 2015[11]). These provision are also supported by Decree 34/2016/ND-CP (Article 8 and Article 10) and Vietnam’s Individual Action Plan submission in 2016 to RAASR.
Article 10 of Decree 34/2016/ND-CP provides detailed requirements for seeking opinions of impacted parties and related organisations and individuals. This stipulated that, during the process of making a request for formulation of a legal document, the requesting agency shall:
1. Collect opinions of subjects directly affected by the policies in the proposal and collect opinions of relevant agencies, organisations and individuals in accordance with the Law and synthesise and research, explain and receive suggestions;
2. Clearly define each policy in the proposal to be consulted, suitable to each object to be consulted and the address to receive comments;
3. Send dossiers of request for formulation of legal documents of central agencies to ministries, ministerial-level agencies, Governmental agencies, relevant agencies and organisations for opinions. For the request for resolution formulation of the provincial-level People's Council, send the dossier to the specialised agency of the provincial-level People's Committee, the ministries and ministerial-level agencies managing the relevant branches and domains, and the relevant agencies. other relevant agencies and organisations for opinions;
4. Send dossiers of request for formulation of legal documents of central agencies to the Central Committee of Vietnam Fatherland Front; dossier of request for resolution formulation of the provincial People's Council to the provincial Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee; dossiers of request for formulation of legal documents related to the rights and obligations of enterprises to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry for opinions;
5. In case of necessity, a meeting may be held to collect opinions on basic policies in the proposal for formulation of legal documents;
6. To study opinions and suggestions to complete the proposal for formulation of legal documents. The report on explanation and collection of opinions must be posted together with other documents in the application for the formulation of legal documents on the Government portal, the web portal of the province or city. centrally-affiliated city and the portal or website of the requesting agency.
Most consultations take place with with business associations. For example, not only does the Law and Laws state that the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) must be consulted before the development of a business regulation, but each year, the Government of Vietnam also makes efforts to organise business fora7 and conferences that bring together business stakeholders with political counterparts to discuss relevant regulatory issues (most notably the annual Vietnam Business Forum). A development forum is also organised for international development partners who contribute to Viet Nam’s development priorities (Vietnam Development Forum). The Prime Minister plays an active role in chairing these discussions as well as contributing to the findings of these meetings.
The Prime Minister’s Advisory Council for Administrative Procedures Reform (ACAPR) is also active channel of consultation with the business community. ACAPR is chaired by the OOG Minister with APCA as its secretariat. ACAPR hold frequent consultation meetings with its members and independent experts to hear their opinions and suggestions for regulatory reforms. ACAPR has many business associations representing both domestic and foreign businesses in its membership (Prime Minister’s Decision 415/QD-TTg dated 4 April 2017 on restructuring membership of ACAPR).
Drafting committees are required to respond to comments and feedbacks of stakeholders collected through various consultation activities. Article 10, Decree 34/2016/ND-CP stipulates that “The report on responses to consultation opinions must be posted together with other documents in the application for the formulation of legal documents on the Government portal, the web portal of the province or centrally-affiliated city and the portal or website of the requesting agency.”
Burden reduction/ex post review
As mentioned above, regulatory reform and burden reduction are a top priority for the Government of Viet nam and is being led by the OOG/APCA. Viet Nam is now in its third wave of burden reduction reforms, which currently has a goal of reducing and simplifying at least 20% of business regulations and compliance costs within the country and in 2021, the programme had highlights that showed that 1 101 regulations in 70 legal documents were effectively cut or simplified. Resolution 68 mandates Ministries to make at least two reform proposals each year that are under their sectoral focus. It also tasks the OOG/APCA with conducting independent reviews and making reform proposals concerning all sectors and industries. Priority areas are set each year according to the Prime Minister and in response to the need of the economy in each period. It must also be noted that Agencies responsible for drafting legal documents are also bound with the responsibility to review their law and regulations regularly or as soon as there is a reason to do so. In particular, Article 1708 of the Law on Laws states that “state agencies have the responsibility to review and systemise legal normative documents within their power and responsibilities…” and “reviewing activities must be done regularly, immediately when there is a basis for reviewing” (Vietnam National Assembly, 2015[11]).
Resolution 68/NQ-CP (Resolution 68) on the programme of cutting or simplifying business regulations in the 2020-2025 period was issued by the Government of Vietnam on 12 May 2020. The resolution aims to cut and simplify at least 20% of business regulations and compliance costs. Some highlights of Resolution 68 include:
Government to control the release of new legal documents and avoid unnecessary and unreasonable regulations;
Government agencies to use software that provides adequate and accurate updates on business regulations and cost. This can then be used as a basis for reviewing the regulations and further simplifying them;
A dialogue between government agencies and businesses would be increased so that the simplification of business procedures could be improved;
Annually, government ministries and agencies are required to propose and implement reform plans to reduce or simplify business regulations. This will also involve assessing the proposal and reviewing the programme for the 2020-2025 period and implementing a communication plan to inform businesses during the period.
Resolution 68 was consulted widely with the business community and received strong support. Ministries and Office of Government (i.e OGG and where APCA is located) hold regular consultation meetings with relevant businesses both online and offline for collecting information and reform ideas. OGG is developing a consultation portal on the basis of the NPSP and business regulation database for more effective consultation activities across the government.
Source: Based on the response given from the Government of Vietnam’s questionnaire.
Viet Nam also reports monitoring the progress of administrative simplification since Project 30. With Resolution 68, they are developing a database of business regulations in which changes in regulations are recorded together with associated administrative costs saved (or increased). The close monitoring of progress with numerical results (number of regulations simplified and cost saved in money term) has provided the impetus for reforms in recent years. Like in other countries, verifying the estimated cost saving is a challenge. They also try to verify the estimated cost saving by conducting an annual survey on some key administrative procedures and developing an Administrative Procedure Cost Index (APCI).
Moreover, the Government of Vietnam has also added several measures to improve the quality of public administrative services to reduce compliance cost for businesses and individuals. These efforts have taken forms in areas such as the development of the National Public Services Portal (NPSP), digitising paper documents for use in providing public services, and renovation of the one-stop shop system. The Government of Viet Nam reports that, at the end of 2021, the NPSP had over 3 500 online services active.
Finally, to sustain efforts towards administrative burden reduction, APCA is also developing a database of business regulations for managing the quality of the whole business regulation system, for reviewing and reforming regulations, and to monitor the calculation how these reforms are contributing to administrative cost saving activities (e.g. number of regulations simplified and cost saved in money term).
Various other types of ex post review tools are in effect in Viet Nam. While there is not a use of sunset clauses, agencies responsible for drafting legal documents do have the responsibility to review law and regulations regularly and as soon as there is a reason to do so. According to Decree 34/2016/ND-CP, legal documents are codified every five years. Moreover, while common commencement dates have not been implemented, agencies report being careful about considering compliance needs when deciding on the date of regulations coming into effect. In 2021, MOJ’s independent review of the legal system led to a Prime Minister’s decision to issue a list of legal documents to be revised, supplemented or developed to solve conflicts, overlappings, and shortcomings in the legal system.
Since 2018, Viet Nam has made improvements to its regulatory environment for digital technologies and has also incorporated digital technologies to achieve better regulatory outcomes. In 2019, the Government of Vietnam issued Resolution No. 17/NQ-CP on some essential tasks to develop a holistic e-government programme by 2025. Resolution 17 set a target to have at least 20% of administrative procedures handled online by 2020 and at least 50% by 2025. Then in 2020, the Government of Vietnam issued Decree 45/2020/ND-CP on handling APs in electronic environment. The Decree laid legal foundations for authenticated digital copy of paper documents to be used in handling APs. Finally, in June 2021, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 942/QD-TTg approving the e-government development strategy towards the digital government in the 2021-2025 period, with a vision to 2030 (Vietnam Briefing, 2021[13]). The strategy sets a target of at least 80% of APs handled online and citizens have to provide personal information only once. This was the first time that Vietnam had issued a strategy on developing e-Government and moving towards the digital government. Related to regulatory issues, Vietnam’s National Digital Transformation Programme includes some of the following goals by 2025:
90% of work records at ministerial and provincial levels are online while 80% of work records at district level and 60% of work records at commune level are processed online;
All national databases including those for population, land, business registration, finance, and insurance are online and connected, with shared data on a government reporting information system;
Inspection of state management agencies are done through digital systems and information systems.
In Viet Nam, national online databases containing legislative documents and foreign investment regulations is in operation. At the central level, the official gazettes of the Government are available on the website of the Official Gazette of Socialist Republic of Vietnam, managed by the Office of Government (World Bank, 2019[10]). At the provincial level, the official gazettes are also available on official websites of most of the provinces (for example, that of the Hanoi official gazette) and are managed by the Office of the relevant provincial-level People’s Committees (World Bank, 2019[10]). MOJ also maintains a national database of legal documents (VBPL, n.d.[14]) and APCA has developed and maintained a national database of administrative procedures since 2010, which can be accessed through the NPSP. APCA is also developing a database of business regulations as a tool to implement Resolution 68 on reducing and simplifying business regulations, which was mentioned in the previous section. All these databases are freely accessible online. At the end of 2021, the Government of Viet Nam reported that over 7 000 detailed regulations, such as on legal capital or human resource requirements, were registered in the database. OOG/APCA is also developing a business regulation consultation portal which is linked to the regulation database and the administrative procedure database.
One-stop shops are a vital part of the government’s public administration reform programme, which was initiated in 2001. The one-stop shops operate at all levels of government, from provinces and districts to commune, ward, and township level, ensuring that all citizens are in a few kilometres range of an access point to public administrative services (World Bank, 2017[15]). The one-stop shops allow citizens to gain access to various administrative services provided by discrete agencies and departments through a single visit and also improve reform efforts and engagement with stakeholders. Online one-stop shops at all levels are integrated and synchronised with NPSP for data sharing, high-quality services, online provision of public services, and central monitoring and evaluation. It is expected that one-stop shops will become centres of digital transformation and administrative reform in the upcoming years. A considerable number of one-stop shops have been become operational at all level; by 2015, the numbers had grown to almost complete coverage with 12 638 one-stop shops operating by May 2015 (World Bank, 2017[15]). By 2021, the Government of Viet Nam reports that all administrative units have OSS offices. There are 76 OSS at ministerial level, 67 OSS at provincial level, 706 OSS at district level and 10 220 at commune level
Additionally, in 2021, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 468/QD-TTg on approval of a project to renovate OSSs and inter-agency OSS mechanisms for handling administrative procedures. This project will aim to improve the efficiency and quality of providing public administrative services to people and organisations by integrating and upgrading OSS IT systems and applying digital solutions. The Government of Vietnam also issued Decree No. 107/2021/ND-CP on amending and supplementing some clauses of Decree No. 61/2018/ND-CP on implementing OSS and inter-agency OSS mechanisms for handling administrative procedures. Decree 107 provides for digitizing paper documents, integrating IT systems, storing digitised documents for reuse in administrative services and providing services across administrative boundaries. Together with Decree 45/2020/ND-CP on handling administrative procedures in electronic environment, these documents are expected to speed up reforms in service delivery and reduce regulatory cost for enterprises in Vietnam. On 6 January 2022, the Prime Minister issued decision No. 06/QD-TTg on applying citizen database for digital transformation in which online administrative service is a focus. Accordingly, digital ID will be used to reduce information requirements in providing administrative services online and offline.
Viet Nam has also further continued with efforts to implement its National Single Window. As of February 2019, there have been 13 governmental agencies, which have implemented 173 administrative procedures through the Viet Nam National Single Window (ASEAN Single Window, n.d.[5]). In 2019, USAID assisted Viet Nam in reviewing the National Single Window System, including finalising the survey method to measure business satisfaction when using the NSW (USAID, 2019[16]) Survey findings and recommendations aimed to assist Vietnam’s ministries and agencies to identify opportunities for reform, modernisation, and simplification of their administrative procedures, thereby reducing time and cost for importers and exporters (USAID, 2019[16]).
Despite COVID-19, Vietnam has continued to pursue its previously planned third phase of regulatory reforms and administrative burden reduction. Implementation of the third phase includes use of digital tools. The new National Public Service Portal integrates over 1 000 public services online and has already saved an estimated USD 300 million (OECD, 2021[17]). The launch of the one-stop unit is in line with the promulgation of Resolution 61/2018/ND-CP, which was revised by Decree 107/2021/ND-CP in December 2021, would push to strengthen the application of IT and digitised documents to provide better and more accessible public services. The resolution and its follow-up amendment aimed to create an open and coherent mechanism in dealing with administrative procedures based on the principle of taking businesses and people as the centre.
The Government of Vietnam has also signalled that they are adapting more and more to online public administrative services (such as tax, business registration, licensing, etc.) through the NPSP and ministerial and provincial public services portals and have used online platforms for consultations, conferences, and workshops to collect data and ideas for regulatory reforms and upcoming proposals. That being said, continued progress for digitalisation and e-governance and Vietnam will require that Government agencies set achievable target, move forward with strong leadership at all government levels, and are well equipped with skills and knowledge to re-engineer business process and make use of more advanced IT systems and tools.
References
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[2] APEC (2018), Renewed APEC Agenda for Structural Reform (RAASR)- Mid-Term Review Report.
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Notes
← 1. E.g. laws, ordinances, resolutions of the National Assembly, decrees of the government, decisions of the Prime Minister, ministry circulars and also resolutions by the People’s Council at the provincial level.
← 2. In addition to USAID, Viet Nam has also co-operated with other international partners to support their regulatory reform efforts. This non-exhaustive list includes: the United Nations Development Programme, the German Technical Co-operation Agency (GTZ), and the United States’ Agency for International Development with the Viet Nam Competitiveness Initiative i.e. USAID/VNCI (Vo Tri and Van Nguyen, 2016[18]).
← 3. National Assembly (for laws) and MOJ and relevant ministries (for lower-level legal documents).
← 4. Article 6, para. 2 requires that agencies responsible for drafting legal documents have the responsibility to create favourable conditions for agencies, organisations, and individuals to provide opinions on the law-making proposals, draft legal documents and hold consultation meetings with parties directly impacted by the draft legal documents.
← 5. Article 34 introduced a general obligation to conduct public consultations during the law-making process.
← 6. Article 35 requires that agencies, organisations and National Assembly deputies are responsible for studying and drafting a draft impact assessment report; collect opinions and critique the draft report; receive and revise the draft report (Vietnam National Assembly, 2015[11]).
← 7. Viet Nam Private Sector Forum organised by the Viet Nam Young Entrepreneurs’ Association (VYEA) and Mekong Business Initiative (OECD, 2018[6]).
← 8. Article 170, Law on Laws stipulates that “State agencies shall, within the ambit of their tasks and powers, review and systematise legal documents; if detecting illegal, contradictory, overlapping, expired or no longer suitable regulations for socio-economic development, they shall promptly propose to competent state agencies by themselves or by request. suspend the implementation, annul, amend, supplement, promulgate new documents or replace legal documents” and that “The document review must be carried out regularly and, as soon as there are grounds to review the documents. The systematisation of documents must be carried out periodically, and promptly announce the systematisation of valid legal documents” (Vietnam National Assembly, 2015[11]).