Comments on Decree 139 & Decree 108

LNT & Partners

This article streamlines some issues that foreign investors may need to be aware of in making their investment decisions in the future, particularly in relation to procedures for the foreign investment by way of capital contribution, purchase share, and establishment of enterprises with less than 49% foreign owned capital (herein after referred to as the “Enterprise(s)”).

Presently, there are different provisions applicable to establishment of the Enterprises according to Decree 139 and the Investment Law. Pursuant to Article 9.3.b) of Decree 139, in case of establishing the Enterprises, the investors shall carry out procedures for establishment of an enterprise in accordance with the Enterprise Law. The enterprise shall then register its investment project as same as domestic enterprises.

However, this provision is claimed to be inconsistent with Article 50.1 of the Investment Law stipulating that foreign investors who first invest in Vietnam regardless of percentage of their ownership in the newly established enterprise must have investment projects and carry procedure for registration of investment. In the event of conflict, the legal instrument with higher validity shall apply, and thus Article 9.3.b) should be void. Consequently, in practice the licensing authorities applying Circular 10725/BKH-PC of the MPI request that the Investors establish and register their investment projects which ironically, in turn, contrary to the provision of Decree 139.

Hence, one of the key objectives of the Draft Decree is to resolve the discrepancies with the provisions of the Investment Law. Indeed, the drafters have amended the Draft Decree in compliance with the provision of Investment Law.

According to Article 12 of the Draft Decree, foreign investor who first invest by establishing an enterprise shall need to conduct the investment registration procedures. The enterprise shall then be issued an investment registration certificate which is at the same time its business registration certificate. That means in establishing the Enterprises, foreign investors shall have to prepare documentation, including, among others, a statement of financial capacity of the investor, required for investment project with foreign capital stipulated in the Investment Law. Therefore, on the one hand this revision has fixed the inconsistency between the laws; on the other hand it creates burdens on foreign investors in proving their financial ability which would have not been the case if the provision of Decree 139 was to apply.

Further, under the current draft decree amending Decree 108, the foreign investors contributing capital or purchasing shares to established enterprise must conduct procedures for evaluation of investment conditions as stipulated in article 60 of Draft Decree 108. According to this Article, foreign investors shall be required to submit evidences of their financial capacity instead of submission of the statement of financial capacity as required by Decree 108. In so doing, the investor shall need to prepare a range of financial-related documents, such as a letter of comfort issued by a bank or credit institution attesting the current status of the investor’s bank account, a financial undertaking for the project or financial statements applicable for corporate investors operating for three years or more, to convince the licensing authorities that they will be able to implement the intended project.

One may take a view that making these amendments is actually taking a step backward in attraction of foreign investment in Vietnam. That is because the evaluation requirement will not only impose more cost on the foreign investors but also take longer time for the licensing authorities to assess applications. This concern is real given current workload of the licensing authorities in Hanoi and Hochiminh city. In future, if the draft decrees are approved, the workload of these authorities shall sharply increase meanwhile the human resources cannot be quickly trained to meet the increasing demands. Indeed, the draft decree amending Decree 108 has extended the statutory time-limit for evaluation from 15 days currently to 30 days. However, it should be noted that under the current evaluation process, very rare projects have been issued an investment certificate within the statutory time limit.

Another issue that raises the investors’ concerns in this regard is that these amendments would create room for bureaucratism. Even though the content of evaluation is restricted, there is no restriction that the licensing authority must not expand the scope of their evaluation to the extent required by law.

Further, two related issues that remains conflict between the provisions of Decree 139 and those of Decree 108 are: First, whether the foreign investors have to carry out project registration in the case where the ratio of foreign own capital exceeded 49% because the capital contribution of the foreign investors or the decrease of capital of the Enterprise. Second, whether an enterprise with less than 49% foreign investment will be restricted by WTO’s commitments, such as distribution enterprises are not allowed to establish more than one distribution point or foreign investment enterprises establishing a restaurant must invest in hotel business, etc. Unfortunately, these issues have not yet been addressed by the Draft Decree. Though, in light of above analysis, it appears that the mindset is in case of conflict whichever is more stringent shall be applied.

In conclusion, despite the expectation that the Draft Decree would further facilitate foreign investment in Vietnam, the provisions of Decree 139 were amended to stringent requirements and procedures for foreign investment. The reason behind these amendments was that there are many foreign investors have delayed the implementation of their projects and thus forcing the local authorities to withdraw their investment certificates. Given the time constraint, it is unlikely that the final Draft Decree would be significantly different from the current draft.

Therefore, to save time and cost, it is advisable that foreign investors should carefully select their investment project as well as prepare all required document, particularly those proving their financial capacity, before submitting to the licensing authority.