Protecting consumer rights and stabilizing price management and regulation

Photo caption — Minister of Finance Nguyen Van Thang speaks. Photo: Doan Tan/VNA

In directing this content, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Duc Hai suggested that the National Assembly Standing Committee focus on the following issues: The necessity and basis for amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Prices; compliance with innovative policies on law-making; prevention and combat of corruption, waste, and negativity in law-making...; the consistency between the draft Law and the Party's policies; compliance with the Constitution, the consistency of the draft Law with the legal system; the response of the draft Law to the requirements of price management in the new situation, the practical feasibility of the provisions stipulated in the draft Law; giving opinions on whether the draft Law is qualified to be submitted to the National Assembly for discussion and approval at the 10th Session of the 15th National Assembly or not...

According to the Report on the review of the Law project presented by the representative of the National Assembly's Economic and Financial Committee at the meeting, the majority of opinions agreed with the necessity of promulgating the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Prices to conform to the current organizational model, implementing the Party and State's policy of perfecting institutions, promoting decentralization and delegation of power, promptly handling practical issues, perfecting and ensuring the consistency of the legal system.

Regarding the order, procedures and documents of the draft Law, the Economic and Financial Committee agrees with the Government's Submission to the National Assembly Standing Committee for consideration and comments, and at the same time decides to add it to the 2025 Law and Ordinance Building Program and the 10th Session Program for the National Assembly to comment, consider and approve according to the shortened order and procedures.

In terms of scope, the draft Law removes the content of specialized price inspection, and at the same time removes specific provisions related to specialized price inspection in specific articles and clauses, to ensure consistency with the 2025 Law on Inspection. Chairman of the Law and Justice Committee Hoang Thanh Tung said that the organization, apparatus and functions of specialized inspection as prescribed in the Law on Inspection have changed significantly. Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance no longer has a specialized price inspection agency. The function of specialized price inspection in particular and specialized inspection in all fields in general has been transferred to the Government Inspectorate.

The Chairman of the Committee on Law and Justice raised the question: If all regulations related to specialized price inspection are removed, on what legal basis will the Government Inspectorate conduct specialized price inspection? Therefore, Mr. Hoang Thanh Tung suggested that the draft Law still maintain the current scope of regulation on specialized price inspection, only changing the phrase "specialized price inspection" to the phrase "inspection in the field of prices" to ensure the legal basis for the Government Inspectorate to conduct.

Commenting at the meeting, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man stated that the Law on Prices was passed by the National Assembly on June 19, 2024, effective from July 1, 2024. After more than a year of implementation, the amendment is now to conform to the arrangement of the two-level government apparatus.

The National Assembly Chairman emphasized that the amendments and supplements should focus on the goal of perfecting the socialist-oriented market mechanism, strengthening state management of prices and price appraisal, while protecting consumer rights and stabilizing price management and regulation; price stabilization, state pricing, price negotiation, price declaration and posting; price synthesis, forecasting and price database, as well as paying attention to appraisal, inspection and specialized examination activities...

According to the National Assembly Chairman, the amendment needs to address some shortcomings in the one-year implementation of the law, in line with the two-level government model; strengthen decentralization, improve management discipline and update the list of goods priced by the State.

The main changes focus on expanding and supplementing the content on the scope of specialized inspections; detailing the responsibility for price stabilization at the commune level; clarifying the conditions for price appraisal enterprises; updating the names of ministries, branches, and list appendices...

National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man noted that the amendments and supplements must ensure consistency with the laws passed by the National Assembly; study regulatory solutions to contribute to promoting decentralization, delegation of power, cutting and simplifying administrative procedures, limiting impacts on business operations; increase technological support for communes; be resolute in specialized inspections and handling violations to ensure order, discipline and discipline in price management; base on practical analysis to study amendments and reduce conditions for price appraisal models to operate to suit the locality.

Also at the session, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Statistics; and gave opinions on the handling of land rental debt of public service units.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/thoi-su/bao-ve-quyen-loi-nguoi-tieu-dung-va-on-dinh-quan-ly-dieu-tiet-gia-20251009110723713.htm