Recently, the National Assembly has adopted the Law No. 03/2022/QH15 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Public Investment, the Law on Investment in the form of public-private partnership, the Law on Investment, the Law on Housing, the Law on Bidding, the Law on Electricity Law on Enterprises, Law on Special Consumption Tax and Law on Execution of Civil Judgments (“Law No. 03”). Law No. 03 officially took effect on March 1, 2022.
Regarding the amendments to the Investment Law, the updated regulations are related to the authority to approve investment policies and supplement new conditional business lines. The following article shall review the adjustment of Law No. 03 to the 2020 Law on Investment.
1. Adjustment towards reducing investment projects being required the Prime Minister’s approval
- Regarding investment projects on the construction of residential housing (for sale, lease, or lease-purchase) and urban areas that use at least 300 hectares of land or with a population of at least 50,000 people (previously, only 50 hectares or a population size of 15,000 or more).
- Regarding investment projects in accordance with legal regulations on cultural heritage: the Prime Minister shall approve projects within the safety perimeter of relics of level I of national relics, special national relics and projects within the safety perimeter of relics of level II of the special national relics under the World Heritage List (previously, it did not distinguish between safety perimeter of relics, but only generally provided that projects within the safety perimeter of relics will be subject to the policy approval of the Prime Minister).
2. Corresponding to the reduction of the Prime Minister’s authority to approve investment policies, Law No.03 additionally granted the Provincial People's Committees the authority for investment projects previously being under the Prime Minister’s authority
3. Supplementations of appraisal contents of the request for an investment policy approval
Specifically include the content on the assessment of the consistency of the investment project with the requirements on the protection and promotion of the value of cultural heritage and the conditions prescribed by the law on cultural heritage. This is the content to be implemented for projects located within the safety perimeter of relics.
4. Trading in network security products and services is added as a conditional business line
Article 3.5 of Law No. 03 also defined that the business of network security products and services will exclude trading in network information security products and services and trading in civil cryptographic products and services.
Comment: