HÀ NỘI – Regulations on the sale of alcohol and home-made liquor management have received substantial attention during discussions of the draft law on alcohol harm prevention, officials said.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) is finalising the draft law and plans to submit it to the National Assembly for consideration in October. 

Alcohol harm will be significant if there are not specific regulations on the management of home-made liquor, Dr Nguyễn Huy Quang, director of the MoH’s Legal Department, said at a workshop organised by the ministry and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Hà Nội yesterday.

The first draft of the law on the prevention of alcohol harm issued a ban on alcohol sale after 10 pm, but this provision was considered infeasible.

In the latest draft, this regulation has been changed.

Specifically, the draft discusses potential regulations on the place, method and timing for a limitations on the sale of alcohol and beer.

The first option is to allow the sale of alcohol only from 11am to 2 pm and from 5 pm to 10 pm daily, except in the case of alcohol sale in the international terminal and areas and streets which specialise in providing food, entertainment and tourism services.

The second option is to sell alcohol from 6am to 10 pm.

The third option is to develop the plans for a ban on alcohol sale following the Government’s roadmap.

The draft law on alcohol harm prevention also provides a regulation on the management of production and trading of home-made wine.

Accordingly, for home-made wine which is not for business purposes, each producer must declare to the local authorities their raw materials, amount and production method and also pledge not to sell alcohol.

According to Dr Quang, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has also faced many difficulties in the management of home-made alcohol.

About 200 out of 270 million litres of alcohol consumed by Vietnamese people each year are home-made wine, he said.

Deputy Minister of Health, Nguyễn Thanh Long, said the consumption of alcohol in Việt Nam is alarming.

"Việt Nam ranks second in Southeast Asia, 10th in Asia and 29th in the world in alcohol consumption,” he said.

According to the MoH, adult males consume 27.4 litres of alcohol per year.

In 2015, 80.3 per cent of adult males said they had drunk alcohol in the past 30 days.

The law on alcohol harm prevention would closely control the demand for alcohol, reduce the consumption and harm and control the supply in order to improve public health, Quang said. - VNS