New legal documents come into effect as from April 2017
13:54 10/04/2017
There are a range of legal documents of the Vietnamese Government and ministries coming into effect as from April 2017, as follows:
1. Decree No. 10/2017/ND-CP dated 9 Feruary 2017 of the Government on a financial management mechanism for EVN took effect as from 1 April 2017.
According to the Decree, EVN was permitted to raise capital from domestic and foreign organizations and individuals to fund its business plans and take responsibility for the use and repayment of loans, if any.
EVN is allowed to use State capital and other financing sources for its operations in accordance with the prevalent rules. The enterprise must use capital efficiently and inform the State and the Ministry of Finance of its capital use, losses, solvency issues and other financial matters.
The company must ensure that liabilities do not exceed its equity by over three times as mentioned in its quarterly and annual financial reports. EVN’s capital mobilization channels include bond sales and loans from credit institutions, financial organizations, individuals, non-corporate entities and employees.
2. Decree No. 22/2017/ND-CP dated 24 February 2017 of the Government on commerical mediation shall take effect as from 15 April 2017.
The Decree stipulates the principles, policy, requirements, sequence and procedures for resolving disputes through trade reconciliation shall take effect.
The settlement of disputes via trade reconciliation must ensure the principle of voluntarism and equality in terms of rights and duties between parties to the disputes who participate in reconciliation activities. Information relating to the reconciliation case must be kept secret, except in the case of a written agreement between parties or other regulations of the law.
The contents of the reconciliation agreement must not violate the law, go against social norms, seek to evade obligations and infringe the rights of the third party.
A dispute could be handled via trade reconciliation if relevant parties have a reconciliation agreement. Parties can choose to resolve the dispute via trade reconciliation before, after the dispute occurrence or at any time of the dispute settlement process.
The State encourages parties to disputes to use trade reconciliation to resolve disputes in the field of trade and other disputes legally eligible for trade reconciliation, while favoring the mobilization of resources participating in trade reconciliation and increasing the capacity of trade reconcilers and trade reconciliation organizations.
3. Decree No. 34/2017/ND-CP dated 3 April 2017 of the Government on functions, tasks, powers and organizational structures of the Ministry of Home Affairs took effect as from 3 April 2017.
4. Decree No. 36/2017/ND-CP dated 4 April 2017 of the Government on functions, tasks, powers and organizational structures of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment took effect as from 4 April 2017.
5. Decision No. 04/2017/QD-TTg dated 9 March 2017 of the Prime Minister on promulgating the list of devices and equipment subject to energy labeling and application of the minimum energy efficiency, and the road map for implementation shall come into effect as from 25 April 2017.
Accordingly, the decision added some devices and equipment subject to energy labeling, including LED lights, water heaters with reserve, laptops, and passenger cars of more than 7 seats to 9 seats, motorcycles, and mopeds (Article 1).
Compulsory energy labeling shall be conducted from 2020 for LED lights, water heaters with reserve, laptops, motorcycles, mopeds (Article 1) and from 2018 for passenger cars of more than 7 seats to 9 seats (Article 2).
Road map for application of the minimum energy efficiency to LED lights, water heaters with reserve, laptops shall be prescribed later by the Prime Minister (Clause 4 Article 3).
6. Circular No. 13/2017/TT-BTC dated 15 February 2017 of the Ministry of Finance regulating the management for cash collection and expenditure through the State Treasury system came into force since 1 April 2017.
This Circular applies to all units under the State Treasury system and the units using the State budget, and transaction units.
The units using the State budget, which want to withdraw cash in excess of the regulations must be registered with the State Treasury including: From VND 200 million or more for the units using the State budget, which transact with Provincial State Treasury; from VND 100 million or more for units using the State budget, which transact with the State Treasury at district level.
If the units using the State budget when transacting with the district level State Treasury which wants to pay in cash from VND 1 billion or more for each payment, they must withdraw cash at the commercial banks where the district level State Treasury opened the account.
In addition, there are some changes in dossier of, procedures for opening payment accounts in comparison with the earlier provisions provided in Circular No. 23/2014/TT-NHNN.
7. Circular No. 01/2017/TT-BTTTT dated 16 February 2017 of the Ministry of Information and Communications on the list of focal information technology products shall take effect as from 2 April 2017.
This Circular provides for the list of focal information technology products, including 7 items below: (i) Signal receiver/transmitter/converter for 2nd-generation and subsequent generation digital video broadcasting; (ii) IPv6 equipment; (iii) RFID tag and reader; (iv) Open-source software for IoT; (v) Open-source software for metadata analysis; (vi) Open-source software for e-government; and (vii) Information security products.
The list is intended for the development of the system of focal informational technology products; is used as a source of reference for investment activities, tax and preference policies; serves the management of import, export, quality and other activities regarding information technology products. In order to be included in this list, the information technology products must meet at least one of the requirements defined in Article 50 of the Law on Information Technology No. 67/2006/QH11.
8. Circular No. 02/2017/TT-BLDTBXH dated 20 February 2017 of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs on guidelines for organization of the Occupational Safety and Health Action Month came into force as from 6 April 2017.
According to the Circular, business and production establishments must focus on performing the following tasks:
- Design and organize specific action programs on occupational safety and health at business and production establishments;
- Formulate, review and supplement rules and procedures for safe work; inspect and evaluate risks of occupational safety and health to each machinery, equipment, workshop, and working group/team to work out measures to efficiently prevent and cope with emergencies/risks of occupational accidents or occupational diseases;
- Review and organize drilling and training activities in occupational safety and health in conformity with each group of subjects as regulated by law; provide information and advice, instructions to workers to evaluate risks of occupational safety and health; examine and verify machinery, equipment and materials bound by strict requirements for occupational safety and health;
- Organize examination of health and occupational diseases for the workers; carry out the monitoring of working environment;
- Organize practice or maneuvers of skills for coping with technical errors relating to labour safety, practice of first-aid skills; organize contests for improving working conditions, preventing occupational accidents and occupational diseases; sign manual agreement to ensure the occupational safety and health at workshops, groups or teams in conformity with specific conditions of each business and production establishment/unit.
The Occupational Safety and Health Action Month shall be organized from the 1st day to the 31st day of May every year. The Launching Ceremony of the Occupational Safety and Health Action Month shall be organized in one day within the period from the 1st day to the 10th day of May every year.
9. Circular No. 03/2017/TT-BCT dated 3 March 2017 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade regulating the management of import tariff quotas on such items as salt and avian eggs in 2017 shall take effect as from 17 April 2017.
This Circular is to proclaim import quotas in 2017 for salt (HS 2501) and avian eggs (HS 0407). Accordingly, import quotas in 2017 for salt and avian eggs are 102,000 tons and 50,051 dozen, respectively.
10. The Ministry of Finance has issued Circular No. 19/2017/TT-BTC dated 28 February 2017 regulating the estimation, management, use and settlement of State budget funds for State management on the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations shall take effect as from 15 April 2017.
This Circular specifies the principles for estimation, management, use and settlement of funds. Accordingly, the task of State management on the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations under the budget levels shall be ensured by the budget of that level and included in the annual budget estimates of its agencies and units in accordance with the provisions of the Law on the State Budget and other relevant legal documents.
The State budget funds for the State management on law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations must be estimated, managed, used and finalized in right purposes and regimes.
Funds sponsored by domestic and foreign individuals, organizations and enterprises for agencies and units to monitor the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations are implemented in compliance with the agreements and Vietnamese law. In case there is no agreement, the provisions in this Circular will be applied.
Annually, based on the assigned functions and tasks and activities and expenditures as described, agencies and units shall make a detailed cost estimate to ensure the State management on the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations and generally sum up the annual recurrent expenditure budget to send to competent authorities in accordance with the Law on the State Budget and the written guidance on law enforcement.
For legal organizations which are not the unit of estimation, every year, the legal organizations shall base the funds to ensure the State management of law enforcement on handling of administrative violations prescribed in the Circular and the approved plan on monitoring the law enforcement on handling of administrative violations to make estimates on funds for the State management on the law enforcement on handling administrative violations to send to their agencies’ financial divisions to generally sum up to the agencies’ funding estimates according to regulations.
The allocation of funds to ensure State management on the law enforcement on handling of administrative violations shall comply with the provisions of the Law on State Budget.
11. Beside the documents mentioned as above, other legal normative documents also come into effect as from April 2017, including:
- Circular No. 02/2017/TT-BXD dated 1 March 2017 of the Ministry of Construction guiding agricultural construction plans shall take effect as from 15 April 2017;
- Circular No. 05/2017/TT-BLDTBXH dated 2 March 2017 of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs on regulations of enrollment and determination of enrollment targets at intermediate and college level shall take effect as from 15 April 2017;
- Circular No. 20/2017/TT-BTC dated 6 March 2017 of the Ministry of Finance amending and supplementing Clause 2 Article 8 of the Circular No. 195/2015/TT-BTC dated 24 November 2015 of the Ministry of Finance (amended and supplemented according to the Circular No. 130/2016/TT-BTC dated 12 August 2016 of the Ministry of Finance) shall take effect as from 20 April 2017;
- Circular No. 06/2017/TT-BNNPTNT dated 8 March 2017 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development amending and supplementing some articles of Circular No. 03/2016/TT-BNNPTNT dated 21 April 2016 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on list of permissible and banned plant protection substances in Vietnam and HS codes thereof shall take effect as from 25 April 2017;
- Circular No. 07/2017/TT-BGTVT dated 14 March 2017 of the Ministry of Transport amending and supplementing some articles of Circular No. 36/2015/TT-BGTVT dated July 24, 2015 of the Ministry of Transport on management of domestic air carriage prices and aviation service prices shall take effect as from 27 April 2017;
- Decision No. 558/QD-BNN-BVTV dated 1 March 2017 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on suspension of import of some goods items likely to be infected with Caryedon serratus Olivier from India shall take effect 60 days after its signing./.
According to the Decree, EVN was permitted to raise capital from domestic and foreign organizations and individuals to fund its business plans and take responsibility for the use and repayment of loans, if any.
EVN is allowed to use State capital and other financing sources for its operations in accordance with the prevalent rules. The enterprise must use capital efficiently and inform the State and the Ministry of Finance of its capital use, losses, solvency issues and other financial matters.
The company must ensure that liabilities do not exceed its equity by over three times as mentioned in its quarterly and annual financial reports. EVN’s capital mobilization channels include bond sales and loans from credit institutions, financial organizations, individuals, non-corporate entities and employees.
2. Decree No. 22/2017/ND-CP dated 24 February 2017 of the Government on commerical mediation shall take effect as from 15 April 2017.
The Decree stipulates the principles, policy, requirements, sequence and procedures for resolving disputes through trade reconciliation shall take effect.
The settlement of disputes via trade reconciliation must ensure the principle of voluntarism and equality in terms of rights and duties between parties to the disputes who participate in reconciliation activities. Information relating to the reconciliation case must be kept secret, except in the case of a written agreement between parties or other regulations of the law.
The contents of the reconciliation agreement must not violate the law, go against social norms, seek to evade obligations and infringe the rights of the third party.
A dispute could be handled via trade reconciliation if relevant parties have a reconciliation agreement. Parties can choose to resolve the dispute via trade reconciliation before, after the dispute occurrence or at any time of the dispute settlement process.
The State encourages parties to disputes to use trade reconciliation to resolve disputes in the field of trade and other disputes legally eligible for trade reconciliation, while favoring the mobilization of resources participating in trade reconciliation and increasing the capacity of trade reconcilers and trade reconciliation organizations.
3. Decree No. 34/2017/ND-CP dated 3 April 2017 of the Government on functions, tasks, powers and organizational structures of the Ministry of Home Affairs took effect as from 3 April 2017.
4. Decree No. 36/2017/ND-CP dated 4 April 2017 of the Government on functions, tasks, powers and organizational structures of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment took effect as from 4 April 2017.
5. Decision No. 04/2017/QD-TTg dated 9 March 2017 of the Prime Minister on promulgating the list of devices and equipment subject to energy labeling and application of the minimum energy efficiency, and the road map for implementation shall come into effect as from 25 April 2017.
Accordingly, the decision added some devices and equipment subject to energy labeling, including LED lights, water heaters with reserve, laptops, and passenger cars of more than 7 seats to 9 seats, motorcycles, and mopeds (Article 1).
Compulsory energy labeling shall be conducted from 2020 for LED lights, water heaters with reserve, laptops, motorcycles, mopeds (Article 1) and from 2018 for passenger cars of more than 7 seats to 9 seats (Article 2).
Road map for application of the minimum energy efficiency to LED lights, water heaters with reserve, laptops shall be prescribed later by the Prime Minister (Clause 4 Article 3).
6. Circular No. 13/2017/TT-BTC dated 15 February 2017 of the Ministry of Finance regulating the management for cash collection and expenditure through the State Treasury system came into force since 1 April 2017.
This Circular applies to all units under the State Treasury system and the units using the State budget, and transaction units.
The units using the State budget, which want to withdraw cash in excess of the regulations must be registered with the State Treasury including: From VND 200 million or more for the units using the State budget, which transact with Provincial State Treasury; from VND 100 million or more for units using the State budget, which transact with the State Treasury at district level.
If the units using the State budget when transacting with the district level State Treasury which wants to pay in cash from VND 1 billion or more for each payment, they must withdraw cash at the commercial banks where the district level State Treasury opened the account.
In addition, there are some changes in dossier of, procedures for opening payment accounts in comparison with the earlier provisions provided in Circular No. 23/2014/TT-NHNN.
7. Circular No. 01/2017/TT-BTTTT dated 16 February 2017 of the Ministry of Information and Communications on the list of focal information technology products shall take effect as from 2 April 2017.
This Circular provides for the list of focal information technology products, including 7 items below: (i) Signal receiver/transmitter/converter for 2nd-generation and subsequent generation digital video broadcasting; (ii) IPv6 equipment; (iii) RFID tag and reader; (iv) Open-source software for IoT; (v) Open-source software for metadata analysis; (vi) Open-source software for e-government; and (vii) Information security products.
The list is intended for the development of the system of focal informational technology products; is used as a source of reference for investment activities, tax and preference policies; serves the management of import, export, quality and other activities regarding information technology products. In order to be included in this list, the information technology products must meet at least one of the requirements defined in Article 50 of the Law on Information Technology No. 67/2006/QH11.
8. Circular No. 02/2017/TT-BLDTBXH dated 20 February 2017 of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs on guidelines for organization of the Occupational Safety and Health Action Month came into force as from 6 April 2017.
According to the Circular, business and production establishments must focus on performing the following tasks:
- Design and organize specific action programs on occupational safety and health at business and production establishments;
- Formulate, review and supplement rules and procedures for safe work; inspect and evaluate risks of occupational safety and health to each machinery, equipment, workshop, and working group/team to work out measures to efficiently prevent and cope with emergencies/risks of occupational accidents or occupational diseases;
- Review and organize drilling and training activities in occupational safety and health in conformity with each group of subjects as regulated by law; provide information and advice, instructions to workers to evaluate risks of occupational safety and health; examine and verify machinery, equipment and materials bound by strict requirements for occupational safety and health;
- Organize examination of health and occupational diseases for the workers; carry out the monitoring of working environment;
- Organize practice or maneuvers of skills for coping with technical errors relating to labour safety, practice of first-aid skills; organize contests for improving working conditions, preventing occupational accidents and occupational diseases; sign manual agreement to ensure the occupational safety and health at workshops, groups or teams in conformity with specific conditions of each business and production establishment/unit.
The Occupational Safety and Health Action Month shall be organized from the 1st day to the 31st day of May every year. The Launching Ceremony of the Occupational Safety and Health Action Month shall be organized in one day within the period from the 1st day to the 10th day of May every year.
9. Circular No. 03/2017/TT-BCT dated 3 March 2017 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade regulating the management of import tariff quotas on such items as salt and avian eggs in 2017 shall take effect as from 17 April 2017.
This Circular is to proclaim import quotas in 2017 for salt (HS 2501) and avian eggs (HS 0407). Accordingly, import quotas in 2017 for salt and avian eggs are 102,000 tons and 50,051 dozen, respectively.
10. The Ministry of Finance has issued Circular No. 19/2017/TT-BTC dated 28 February 2017 regulating the estimation, management, use and settlement of State budget funds for State management on the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations shall take effect as from 15 April 2017.
This Circular specifies the principles for estimation, management, use and settlement of funds. Accordingly, the task of State management on the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations under the budget levels shall be ensured by the budget of that level and included in the annual budget estimates of its agencies and units in accordance with the provisions of the Law on the State Budget and other relevant legal documents.
The State budget funds for the State management on law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations must be estimated, managed, used and finalized in right purposes and regimes.
Funds sponsored by domestic and foreign individuals, organizations and enterprises for agencies and units to monitor the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations are implemented in compliance with the agreements and Vietnamese law. In case there is no agreement, the provisions in this Circular will be applied.
Annually, based on the assigned functions and tasks and activities and expenditures as described, agencies and units shall make a detailed cost estimate to ensure the State management on the law enforcement on the handling of administrative violations and generally sum up the annual recurrent expenditure budget to send to competent authorities in accordance with the Law on the State Budget and the written guidance on law enforcement.
For legal organizations which are not the unit of estimation, every year, the legal organizations shall base the funds to ensure the State management of law enforcement on handling of administrative violations prescribed in the Circular and the approved plan on monitoring the law enforcement on handling of administrative violations to make estimates on funds for the State management on the law enforcement on handling administrative violations to send to their agencies’ financial divisions to generally sum up to the agencies’ funding estimates according to regulations.
The allocation of funds to ensure State management on the law enforcement on handling of administrative violations shall comply with the provisions of the Law on State Budget.
11. Beside the documents mentioned as above, other legal normative documents also come into effect as from April 2017, including:
- Circular No. 02/2017/TT-BXD dated 1 March 2017 of the Ministry of Construction guiding agricultural construction plans shall take effect as from 15 April 2017;
- Circular No. 05/2017/TT-BLDTBXH dated 2 March 2017 of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs on regulations of enrollment and determination of enrollment targets at intermediate and college level shall take effect as from 15 April 2017;
- Circular No. 20/2017/TT-BTC dated 6 March 2017 of the Ministry of Finance amending and supplementing Clause 2 Article 8 of the Circular No. 195/2015/TT-BTC dated 24 November 2015 of the Ministry of Finance (amended and supplemented according to the Circular No. 130/2016/TT-BTC dated 12 August 2016 of the Ministry of Finance) shall take effect as from 20 April 2017;
- Circular No. 06/2017/TT-BNNPTNT dated 8 March 2017 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development amending and supplementing some articles of Circular No. 03/2016/TT-BNNPTNT dated 21 April 2016 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on list of permissible and banned plant protection substances in Vietnam and HS codes thereof shall take effect as from 25 April 2017;
- Circular No. 07/2017/TT-BGTVT dated 14 March 2017 of the Ministry of Transport amending and supplementing some articles of Circular No. 36/2015/TT-BGTVT dated July 24, 2015 of the Ministry of Transport on management of domestic air carriage prices and aviation service prices shall take effect as from 27 April 2017;
- Decision No. 558/QD-BNN-BVTV dated 1 March 2017 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on suspension of import of some goods items likely to be infected with Caryedon serratus Olivier from India shall take effect 60 days after its signing./.