Speaking at the Workshop, Chairman Pham Tan Cong said that the economic picture has many bright spots. Vietnam's GDP growth in 2024 reached 7.09%, an impressive figure, showing a strong recovery of the economy, however, businesses still face many difficulties: orders have decreased, the consumer market has not recovered clearly, capital and labor flows continue to be difficult problems.

On the morning of April 22, VCCI held a workshop to announce the “Vietnam Business Law Flow Report 2024”

Under this pressure, the Party, the National Assembly, and the Government have shown great determination in reforming institutions and perfecting laws. General Secretary To Lam emphasized: “Institutions are the bottleneck of bottlenecks”, the Prime Minister requested a drastic shift from the mindset of “if you can’t manage, then ban” to the mindset of “both managing, promoting and clearing”.

“This is the guiding ideology throughout the current reform of laws and business institutions”, Chairman Pham Tan Cong expressed.

VCCI Chairman - Pham Tan Cong delivered the opening speech at the Workshop

At the same time, he said that 2024 continued to witness the excitement in the work of law-making - with many Laws, Decrees, and Circulars being amended and issued in the direction of reform. However, it cannot be denied that the current legislative process still has many points that need to be improved: from the way of selecting issues, the way of drafting documents, to the way of collecting opinions and building detailed regulations under the law. Amendments are sometimes still formal, the preparation time is short, and do not really fully reflect reality.

According to Chairman Pham Tan Cong, through monitoring and analyzing issued documents and collecting opinions from the business community, VCCI sees 4 main "currents" in the business legal system in 2024, including:

Firstly, in recent years, the Government has made great efforts to reduce business conditions, reform administrative procedures, decentralize and delegate more power to local authorities and specialized agencies. Many regulations have been amended to make them simpler, more transparent and more convenient for businesses.

A positive signal is that the business community is increasingly proactive in providing comments and criticism on policies. Many policies issued in 2024 have clearly shown their imprint from business practice. However, there are still many documents that do not reflect the market's wishes, due to the urgent drafting time and the process of collecting opinions is still formal.

 Mr. Dau Anh Tuan - Deputy General Secretary, Head of the Legal Department of VCCI informed about the "Vietnam Business Law Flow Report 2024" at the Workshop

Secondly, some reform policies have not been really favorable in implementation. Despite many efforts, some policies have not yet created substantial changes. The main reason is that the old management mindset has not been thoroughly changed.

For example, investment and licensing procedures are still complicated; many control regulations are not close to reality. Some fields such as petroleum, aircraft equipment, notarization... still have inflexible regulations, not creating favorable conditions for business operations.

"The market expects a more substantial reform mindset, not only in reviewing and amending current regulations, but also in building new policies in an open, transparent and business-friendly direction", Chairman Pham Tan Cong emphasized.

Representatives of Business Associations and experts shared at the Workshop

Thirdly, financial and tax policies have many positive movements but still have concerns. Tax and financial policies continue to be considered effective support tools for economic recovery. Many tax and fee exemption and reduction policies have been implemented. However, businesses still reflect some shortcomings in implementation such as cost pressure, compliance time and lack of synchronization in tax laws.

Tax management has also seen many improvements, especially in e-commerce, but there are still legal gaps, causing difficulties for small businesses and individuals doing business on digital platforms.

Fourthly, e-commerce policies have had positive adjustments but still lack synchronization. E-commerce is developing rapidly and plays a key role in the digital economy. 650 thousand online stores on e-commerce platforms, 318,900 billion VND worth of goods traded on 5 popular e-commerce platforms in 2024 and 20.5 billion USD in retail e-commerce revenue in 2023 are figures that demonstrate the strong development of this type of business. But on the other hand, in 2024 alone, up to 165 thousand stores left e-commerce.

This figure reflects the increasingly fierce competition in the e-commerce sector, while current e-commerce laws seem to "leave open" the rights and interests of the subjects.

Many new policies have been issued in a timely manner to meet management requirements, but there are still regulations that do not cover all practical aspects, especially for small and spontaneous business individuals. It is necessary to perfect the legal framework to protect the rights of stakeholders and ensure fair and transparent competition.

At the Workshop, delegates also listened to the representative of VCCI announce the "Vietnam Business Law Flow Report 2024". Agreeing with the contents of the Report, many opinions shared at the Workshop also expressed that, in addition to the positive aspects in the work of building legal policies in recent times, there are still many existing problems such as: Policies on attracting investment in waste-to-energy projects; Procedures for declaring conformity standards for products and goods;...

According to statistics from VCCI, in 2024, the National Assembly issued 31 Laws, the Government issued 182 Decrees, and the Ministries issued 629 Circulars. The number of legal documents in 2024 has increased significantly compared to 2023, especially the number of Laws and Decrees has nearly doubled.