VN to amend its foreign investment law
Play
Economy being restructured with big plans for nationwide infrastructure development to boost growth, seminar hears
Vietnam is adjusting its economic focus and foreign-investment law in an attempt to boost economic growth, officials from that country said yesterday, suggesting that shifting investment to Vietnam now would pay off down the road from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
While trying to cope with the global slowdown, Vietnam is restructuring its economy by focusing on public investment and equitisation of state-owned enterprises as well as the banking system, said Nguyen Ba Cuong, deputy director of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Planning and Investment Ministry.
The government will invest more to develop its infrastructure nationwide, privatise 940 state enterprises and liberalise the financial and banking system, he said.
“The government will equitise some 460 state-owned enterprises by 2015, and thus open great opportunities for foreign investment in the state enterprises,” Cuong told a seminar in Bangkok yesterday.
The Vietnamese National Assembly is considering amending the Foreign Investment Law to facilitate and protect foreign investment more effectively, he said.
The amendment is expected to come into force by early next year, he said.
Key elements of the amendment include separation of business registration from investment registration, streamlining the procedures for project evaluation, and adjustment of investment certificates for projects located outside industrial zones, economic zones, export-processing zones and high-tech zones, he said.
“Currently doing business outside the economic zones is a bit complicated, so the government wants to adjust some conditions,” he said.
The amendments would also increase transparency of the conditions of investment and lists of projects prohibited for foreign investment, he said. Upgrading administrative procedures on management of foreign direct investment is also included, he said.
Two-way trade
Cuong spoke to a seminar on “Trade and Investment with Vietnam” held yesterday by the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok, coinciding with an official visit by Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha to Vietnam yesterday and today to cement ties and forge bilateral cooperation, notably on economic issues.
As of this month, Thai investment in Vietnam ranked 10th with registered capital of US$6.6 billion (Bt216 billion). The value of two-way trade last year reached $9.41 billion, with Vietnam carrying a $3-billion trade deficit.
Chokedee Kaewsang, deputy secretary-general of Thailand’s Board of Investment, said the BOI had made Vietnam a top priority for outbound investment because of its high economic growth and huge market potential. Thailand has pacts with Vietnam to promote and protect Thai investment in Vietnam, he said.
Nguyen Thanh Hai, chief of the Vietnam Trade Office in Thailand, told yesterday’s conference that Vietnam had huge potential for trade and investment.
Vietnam and Thailand are joint members of a lot of economic-cooperation bodies and schemes such as the Asean Economic Community and the Greater Mekong Subregion, he said.
“Free-trade areas of Asean benefit all traders in the Asean region, but many of them do not realise that they have to fill out forms on the rule of origin to benefit from tariff exemption schemes,” he said.
Traders could enjoy tariff benefits only if their goods contain more than 40 per cent local content.
Hai said Vietnamese accession to the US-sponsored TPP, which Thailand has not expressed intention to join, would benefit foreign investors in Vietnam as they would face fewer trade barriers and more tariff-free schemes in the member markets of the comprehensive regional free-trade area.
Among Asean members, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam have agreed to join the TPP.
When the highly secretive process of negotiation among 12 partners in the Asia and Pacific including the US, Australia, Canada, Japan and Mexico are complete, its supporters say the controversial pact would unlock opportunities for market access to trade, investment and services among them.
