Law on Investment 2020

Issue Date: 17/06/2020 Effective Date: 01/01/2021 Status: Available

LAW

ON INVESTMENT

Pursuant to Constitution of Socialist Republic of Vietnam;

The National Assembly promulgates the Law on Investment.

Chapter I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1. Scope

This Law provides for business investment activities in Vietnam and outward business investment activities.

Article 2. Regulated entities

This Law applies to investors, and agencies, organizations and individuals (hereinafter referred to as “entities”) involved in business investment activities.

Article 3. Definitions

For the purposes of this Law, the terms below are construed as follows:

1. “approval for investment guidelines” means a competent authority approving the objectives, location, scale, schedule and duration of a project; investor or form of selection of investor and special mechanisms or special policies (if any) to execute an investment project.

2. “investment registration authority” means a regulatory agency that issues, adjusts and revokes investment registration certificates.

3. “national investment database” means a collection of data on investment projects nationwide that is connected to databases of relevant agencies.

4. “investment project” means a collection of proposals for the expenditure of mid-term or long-term capital to carry out investment activities in a particular administrative division over a certain period of time.

5. “expansion project” means an investment project on development of a running project by expanding the scale, improving the capacity, applying new technologies, reducing pollution or improving the environment.

6. “new investment project” means a project that is executed for the first time or a project independent from any other running project.

7. “start-up project” means an investment project that implements ideas on the basis of exploiting intellectual property, technologies and new business models and is able to grow quickly.

8. “business investment” means an investor investing capital to do business.

9. “business investment conditions” mean those which must be satisfied by an individual or organization upon making business investment in conditional business lines.

10. “market access conditions applied to foreign investors” mean those which must be satisfied by foreign investors to make investment in the List of business lines with prohibited and restricted market access (hereinafter referred to as “the Negative List for Market Access”) specified in Clause 2 Article 9 of this Law.

11. “investment registration certificate” means a physical or electronic document bearing information registered by an investor about an investment project.

12. “National Investment Information System” means a system of professional information meant for monitoring, assessment, and analysis of nationwide investment in order to serve state management tasks and assist investors in carrying out investment activities.

13. “outward investment activity” means an investor transferring investment capital from Vietnam to a foreign country and using profit obtained from such investment capital to carry out outward investment activities in the foreign country.

14. “business cooperation contract” means a contract between investors for business cooperation and distribution of profits or products without establishment of a business organization.

15. “export-processing zone” means an industrial park specialized in manufacturing of exported products or provision of services for manufacturing of exported products and export.

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10. Grandfather clauses on outward investment activities:

a) Regulations on the duration of outward investment projects set out in outward investment licenses and outward investment certificates issued before July 01, 2015 shall cease to have effect;

b) Any investor issued with an outward investment license or certificate or outward investment registration certificate to make outward investment in a conditional business line subject to conditional outward investment in accordance with this Law may continue to make investment according to the issued outward investment license or certificate or outward investment registration certificate.

11. From the effective date of this Law, if any document has been received and the deadline for processing thereof has expired but the results have not been returned in accordance with the Law No. 67/2014/QH14 on Investment amended by the Law No.  90/2015/QH13, the Law No. 03/2016/QH14, the Law No. 04/2017/QH14, the Law No. 28/2018/QH14 and the Law 42/2019/QH14, such document shall continue to be processed in accordance with regulations of law 67/2014/QH14 on Investment amended by the Law No. 90/2015/QH13, the Law No. 03/2016/QH14, the Law No. 04/2017/QH14, the Law No. 28/2018/QH14 and the Law No. 42/2019/QH14.

12. The Government shall elaborate this Article.

This Law is adopted by the 14th National Assembly of Socialist Republic of Vietnam on this 17th of June 2020 during its 9th session.