The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Wednesday talked about the Law on Enterprises. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI – The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Wednesday agreed the current Law on Enterprises needed to be revised to improve the business and investment environment and raise the efficiency and effectiveness of State management.

In a discussion session on Wednesday in Hà Nội about the draft Law on Enterprises (revised), members of the Standing Committee paid much attention to the new regulation on household businesses.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyễn Chí Dũng said the revised law acknowledged the existence of household business just as other types of business, including private enterprise; partnership; limited liability company; and joint stock company. Investors are free to establish and operate in one of these forms. On the other hand, household businesses are not obliged to become a company.

Previously, the Enterprise Law of 2014 and its guiding documents required household businesses to employ more than 10 people to register as businesses.

The revised law has tackled shortcomings of current regulations regarding this matter, such as unclear legal status and civil responsibility of household businesses, limited rights within the district level and regulations stopping a household business hiring more than 10 employees or opening branches and representative offices.

Such shortcomings were preventing the businesses from taking advantage of opportunities, said Vũ Hồng Thanh, head of the NA Economic Committee.

However, he said many people said there should be a separate law for household businesses.

A member of the NA Standing Committee Trần Văn Tuý said it was important that thorough consideration be conducted when combining “household business” into the Law on Enterprises.

In the revised law, apart from the annulment of the requirement that a household business was only allowed to hire less than 10 employees and can't open branches, Tuý said there were nothing more to encourage the development of this business type.

The country has an estimated more than 5.1 million household businesses.

They employ some eight million people nationwide and contribute nearly 30 per cent of the country’s GDP. However, they only contribute 1.6 per cent of the State budget.

On the same day, the Standing Committee also talked about the Law on Investment. — VNS