Trần Thị Hồng Minh, director of Department for Business Registration Management, Ministry of Planning and Investment, tells the Vietnam Economic Times newspaper that the supervision of enterprises after business registration should not only be the job of State agencies.

It is said that Việt Nam’s easy business registration process has allowed people to take advantage of legal loopholes. What is your opinion?      

That comment shows a clear misunderstanding of business registration and State management of enterprises.

First, business registration totally differs from licensing. State agencies in charge of business registration are not authorised to give business licences to enterprises. Respecting the freedom of doing businesses as stipulated in the Constitution, business registration agencies only acknowledge the aspiration to join the enterprise market.

If an enterprise hands in legitimate documents to apply for business registration, the agencies must issue them a business registration certificate, just like every child has a legitimate right to obtain a birth certificate.

Second, it is the enterprise that violates the laws that must bear responsibility for violations, not the business registration agencies. This regulation has been clearly stated in related Government’s decrees.  It is like we cannot accuse parents for crimes that their child commits.

The simplification of business registration processes aims to offer favourable conditions for the majority of enterprises having a true aspiration of doing business and creating jobs for labourers. The number of businesses taking advantage of the favourable mechanism to violate laws is minority. Yet it poses requirements for management bodies to intensify and improve the work of post-checking enterprises after they have completed business registration.

What kind of problems do State management bodies face in the post-checking activity?

First, the challenge stems from the unreadiness of management agencies and the lack of co-ordination among related agencies. In addition, the rapid increase of businesses in recent  years has brought along a surge in law violations as well as an increase in more severe violations. Thus, management bodies must change their management methods to correspond with the new situation and help them solve difficulties to reduce their violations.

How can we improve the efficiency of post-checking activity in the future?

Under the Law on Enterprise 2014, ministries and ministerial-level agencies bear responsibility before the Government in performing the designated task of managing businesses, provincial people’s committees are designated to manage businesses operating in their localities. That means there is no specialised agency fully in charge of post-checking. The task belongs to all State agencies which are authorised to perform the State management towards businesses.

Therefore, all responsible agencies need to be fully aware of the extent that they are responsible for post-checking and co-operate with other agencies and organisations such as business registration agencies, tax agencies, or police.

State agencies and officials should instruct businesses to abide by law regulations, contribute opinions to devising laws or regulations to create favourable conditions for enterprises to do business, ensure social order and safety and refrain from infringe on a third party’s interest.

Local authorities should closely co-operate with central-level State management agencies to develop policies, mechanisms and regulations on business activities.

Local leaders should enhance dialogues with enterprises, listen to their opinions and promptly solve their questions over problems in State management towards enterprises.

Another important measure is to call for the involvement of other parties in supervising enterprises, such as creditors, business partners, business competitors, consumer’s associations, professional associations or the community. Post-checking mechanisms will work once they can engage not only State agencies but all enterprise-related parties and the whole society. — VNS