The President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) - Pham Tan Cong at the seminar announcing the report "Vietnam Business Law Flow 2022" held by VCCI on April 4.

The stability of the legal environment to support private sector economic development is a key message that the business community wants to express in this report, according to VCCI President Pham Tan Cong, who stressed this in his opening remarks. Investors always need the stability and predictability of the legal environment to decide whether to invest or not in significant investment projects performed over a lengthy period of time. High legal risks are always associated with poor corporate investment practices.

"The law must be followed, but it also affects how policies are carried out, run, and distributed. Large leading businesses require a steady business environment since they cannot stop abruptly, like large ships," VCCI President Pham Tan Cong shared.

According to VCCI President Pham Tan Cong, the report shows that in 2022, policy and legal construction activities in our nation will primarily follow certain "flows" such as: Policies to cope with the effects of the global economy are reasonable and flexible; Policies related to support and post-pandemic recovery continue to be promoted, helping businesses overcome challenges; Policies related to the digital platform continue to be improved; Activities for administrative procedural reform, cost reduction, and compliance are still supported.

Overview of the seminar

However, in addition to many administrative procedures, compliance costs have been reduced, and simplified, businesses still have concerns about the practicality of these activities. Because many cumbersome regulations increase unreasonable business costs (for example: Fire protection regulations...) are still absent from proposed plans to cut compliance costs and simplify them.

Along with that, in 2022, there are "hot" issues that require managers to reassess management mechanisms and improve policies, such as: Land auction activities and business deposits winning the auction, or violations in issuing private bonds. These activities have had a significant impact on the economy and a major impact on the investment and business environment...

In fact, VCCI's 2022 Business Legal Flow Report points out that the reduction and simplification of administrative procedures in 2022 "has a reform spirit but still raises many concerns about its actual effectiveness."

The proposals for administrative procedure reform focus mainly on eliminating documents in the application file that have already been provided or can be accessed through the state agency's information system, adding electronic methods to administrative procedure resolution, standardizing the documents in the file by issuing some document templates, reducing the number of required files - usually reduced to one set of documents, reducing the time to resolve procedures - shortening the time to review the validity of the application file, appraisal time, and result return time.

VCCI believes that these proposals are still not "strong enough." If we consider the business legal system, there are still many shortcomings, difficulties that make it hard for businesses. Therefore, businesses always question the effectiveness of reducing and simplifying administrative procedures and business conditions.

In addition, the report also includes surveys of businesses from the Provincial Competitiveness Index. Nguyen Minh Duc, a legal expert of the VCCI Law Committee, said that the proportion of businesses that can predict changes in central legal regulations is gradually decreasing. Ten years ago, in 2013, the predicted rate was about 14.29%, but in recent years, the rate has not reached 5%.

This trend is also similar to the prediction of the province's implementation of central legal regulations, although the predicted rate is slightly higher, about 6%. Among them, the majority of small and medium-sized businesses cannot predict.

However, there is a noteworthy point that the proportion of businesses believing that paying unofficial costs can achieve expected results is gradually decreasing. Ten years ago, the rate of trust in money leading to success was over 63%, but in recent years, this rate has dropped to about 55.2%...

Along with the contents of the VCCI's 2022 Business Legal Flow Report, the workshop also listened to the opinions of business associations and experts on the legal environment in current business operations and the directions to address existing problems and shortcomings.