Regulations on conditional business lines
VGP - Law No. 03/2016/QH14 (“Amended Investment Law”) was passed on November 22, 2016 by the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, amending and supplementing Article 6 and Appendix 4 of the Law on investment regarding the list of conditional business lines (“Investment Law 2014”).
Question: What are the key points in the Amended Investment Law?
Answer: The new Law features some key points as follows:
Banning trade in exploding firecrackers
According to the Amended Investment Law, trade in firecrackers in general is a conditional business line, trade in exploding firecrackers in particular is classified as a banned business line in addition to other banned items prescribed in Article 6.1 of the Investment Law 2014.
Abolishing and supplementing a number of conditional business lines
The Amended Investment Law regulates 243 conditional business lines while Investment Law 2014 regulates 267 conditional business lines in Appendix 4.
The Amended Investment Law supplements a number of new conditional business lines such as trade in disguised equipment and software used for audio and visual recordings and positioning; manufacturing and repairing liquefied petroleum gas bottles (LPG bottles); manufacturing, assembling and importing automobiles; training of marine crew members including recruiting and training; providing construction design and planning services; registering and maintaining the domain name “.vn” services; trade in civil code products and services; overseas study consultation services; publishing and disseminating films, and so forth.
The Amended Investment Law also abolished some conditional business lines prescribed in the Investment Law 2014 such as trade in coal; service of training insurance agents; service of advice on determining corporate value for equalization; service of marine guarantee; importing radio receivers, radio broadcast receivers; tutoring services; intermediate level professional education activities; trade in fishing tackle and aquaculture exploitation equipment; television services upon demand; service of bidding agents; service of medicine testing and so forth.
The Amended Investment Law took effect as from January 1, 2017 while the conditional business lines such as trade in disguised equipment and software used for audio and visual recordings, and positioning; manufacturing, assembling and importing automobiles will take effect as from 01/07/2017.
This Law also abolished Article 19.1 of the Bidding Law on tender training and retraining, and Article 151 of the Construction Law on the conditions for an organization to formulate and verify construction investment projects./.
