Proposal to remove investment policy approval procedures to reduce time wasted for businesses

Considering that the investment policy approval procedure has many problems, forcing businesses to struggle with a complicated and costly administrative process, many opinions have proposed removing this procedure in the draft Law on Investment and Business.

Enterprises and experts propose to remove the procedure of approving investment policies, in order to reduce the time for enterprises to complete procedures - Photo: NGOC HIEN

The investment policy approval procedure is considered a "bottleneck" in the procedure, causing businesses and experts to propose abolishing it to reduce the procedural burden on investors.

Investment policy approval procedures increase the time by 2-5 years

In the draft Law on Investment and Business that is being consulted, the Ministry of Finance said that there is a proposal to abolish the procedure for approving investment policies to reduce investment barriers, because this procedure has unclear management objectives, is ineffective, unpredictable, and overlaps with many other regulations...

In addition, the legal regulations related to business investment are relatively comprehensive, the procedures for approving investment policies and selecting investors according to the provisions of the law on investment have given rise to some difficulties and problems in the implementation process.

Mr. Le Hoang Chau - Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association - said that on average, a commercial housing project in a large urban area must go through 7-9 administrative procedures lasting 3-5 years before being granted a construction permit. Of which, the procedure for requesting investment policy always takes up the majority of time and is the most unpredictable step.

According to Mr. Chau, the procedure for approving investment policies is being overly bureaucratized, turning into a "technical barrier" that causes businesses to fall into a "request-grant" spiral right from the first step, especially projects related to land, resources or planning.

Meanwhile, real estate business leaders in Ho Chi Minh City said that the investment approval procedure is one of the major barriers to the development of private enterprises. In fact, this process can increase the time and cost of investment preparation by 2-5 years, causing many businesses to lose business opportunities just because of the long wait for approval.

Proposal to abolish investment policy approval procedures

According to this enterprise, having to go through many steps and many related agencies to request approval or adjustment of investment policies duplicates the project appraisal and approval process, creating an administrative burden for enterprises.

This enterprise reflects that the appraisal process is too dependent on the coordination of many departments and branches. If just one unit is slow to respond or has an inconsistent opinion, the dossier will be "suspended" indefinitely. Even if the department or branch gives conflicting opinions, the presiding agency cannot synthesize them to submit to the competent authority. This causes the project to take a whole year just to wait for appraisal, even though the enterprise has submitted a complete dossier from the beginning.

In addition, businesses reflect that in order to complete the investment policy approval procedure, businesses still have to "overcome" the "consensus" and "preliminary approval" documents from different agencies and departments even though the law does not stipulate, turning into unofficial administrative procedures but causing waste of time and high costs.

"If the above regulation is abolished, it is possible to cut 30-50% of the time for handling administrative procedures, legal compliance costs, and business conditions depending on the type of project. This means saving time and costs for investors, thereby speeding up the implementation progress and soon putting the project into production and business operations," he said.

According to Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung - former Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, the procedure for approving investment policies causes many negative impacts on investors such as wasting time, costs, requiring many additions and adjustments, especially in terms of scale, progress and implementation period. It even causes additional risks for investors if there are changes compared to the approved policies.

According to Mr. Cung, investment policy approval is an administrative procedure without a clear management objective, cannot replace other necessary procedures, causes many adverse impacts on the investment environment, and therefore needs to be abolished soon.

"Time is money for business"

Mr. Le Huu Nghia - General Director of Le Thanh Company - said that in the process of applying for investment procedures for projects, enterprises carry out many procedures, in which each document requesting opinions from departments and branches takes a lot of time, even months. Therefore, Mr. Nghia thinks that it is necessary to remove unnecessary regulations, and at the same time clearly stipulate the time for units to respond or not responding after the prescribed time is of course agreed.

"This saves time for businesses, because time is money," said Mr. Nghia.

NGOC HIEN

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/de-xuat-bo-thu-tuc-chap-thuan-chu-truong-dau-tu-bot-lang-phi-thoi-gian-cho-doanh-nghiep-20251004150150129.htm