VietNamNet Bridge - Tens of thousands of businesses have become disillusioned about the breakthrough they expected the 2014 Enterprise Law would bring. At the same time, business registration agencies have become overloaded.

It was 5 pm, but Nguyen Thanh Huong, an officer of Anh Sang Tam Nhin Moi Company Ltd, was still sitting at the Hanoi Planning and Investment Department’s business registration office in Nam Trung Yen urban area.

Huong had been there since 8 am and she did not know when she would leave, because she still had no answer from the agency. She was following the procedure to change the business registration address from District 12, HCM City to Hai Ba Trung District in Hanoi. 

“I have been sitting here since early morning. When the morning working hours finished, I was told by the officers to come back in the afternoon, because my documents still need the signature of the agency’s head. But when I asked them about my case at 4 pm, I was told to wait until 5 pm,” Huong said.

However, Huong was not sure if she could get the signature she expected on her papers by 5 pm or not. This was the third time she had visited the business registration agency for the same purpose.

On her first visit, she was told that she just needs to fill in two forms – declaration about the business registration addresses and declaration about the changes in tax code. But later the officers said she must submit many other kinds of documents.

“I read the new law carefully before coming here. I also learned about the new regulations from the planning and investment department’s website. But there was nothing about the required documents,” she said.

Bao, an officer from An Viet Law firm, who was also present at the business registration office, noted that it takes him much more time to fulfill procedures for clients.

According to Bao, under the old law, newly set up businesses just needed to submit documents once to the business registration office and wait five days. 

After getting licenses, businesses visited the police to fulfill the procedures for business stamps, which were received in 4-5 days.

Now under the new law, businesses have to submit documents three times: 1) for registering businesses, which takes 3 days 2) for posting information on the national information portal, which takes one day and 3) for making public the samples of businesses’ stamps.

As such, it will take seven working days at least to complete the business registration. But it actually takes longer because the business registration office has become overloaded.

Pham Huyen