Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc yesterday attended a national science conference to explore ways of improving the Vietnamese legal system.— VNA/VNS Photo Thống Nhất

HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc yesterday attended a national science conference to explore ways of improving the Vietnamese legal system.

His visit was arranged to keep up with the demand of the fourth industrial revolution.

Organised by the Ministry of Justice, leaders of the National Assembly, the Government, relevant ministries, representatives of the start-up community, scientists and law experts were in attendance.

Deputy Minister of Justice Phan Chí Hiếu told the conference given the new developments of the technology revolution, the current legal system had revealed many shortcomings, especially in areas related to property rights, intellectual property rights, venture capital, encrypted assets, tax administration, personal data protection, digital signatures and online dispute resolution.

The conference is an opportunity to discuss adjustments needed so Việt Nam can take full advantage of the technology revolution and cope with the challenges it brings.

Three sessions focused on civil and economic laws, the construction of e-government and smart cities and access to justice and assurance of network security.

Speaking in the first session on the need to make improvement on civil and economic laws, Thạch Lê Anh, Director of Vietnam Silicon Valley said start-ups would face many risks in registration procedures and calling for investment, since currently there is no specific guidance on attracting private capital.

“Start-ups spend a lot of their time calling for funding and 90 per cent of their cases fail,” she said.

“In many cases, their failures can be considered as fraud because debts are huge.”

Tackling the problem of legal instructions for raising capital would be great support for start-ups, she added, and would give firm assurances to foreign investors.

She also said "the current law on small-and-medium-sized enterprises is no longer appropriate because of the lack of business models". This resulted in many start-ups having their registration returned or pending.

Lê Minh Khiêm from the Ministry of Finance said the current tax management model had not caught up with the fourth industrial revolution.

The legal system on tax management had not been synchronised, creating risks for both State management agencies and enterprises, Khiêm said.

He added that the ministry was working on new tax policies that are more suitable for new business models, with focus on start-ups, and would submit the proposal to the Government and the National Assembly in the future.

The conference had received many valuable comments from departments, ministries, central agencies, research and training institutions, business community, experts and scientists. --VNS