VietNamNet Bridge – The National Assembly (NA) last week passed a one-page bill amending Article 170 of the Enterprise Law in a way that saves some 3,000 foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) that have missed the deadline to renew their investment certificates.

With the approval from an overwhelming majority of the NA deputies present at the ongoing session, the requirement for FIEs to make re-registrations provided in Article 170 of the Enterprise Law is annulled.

Thus, FIEs are now not required to re-register their operations but they can still do it as they wish.

Those who do not re-register operations can continue business as in accordance with their investment certificates.

Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh said the amendment to Article 170 of the Enterprise Law was aimed to remove the problems for the FIEs whose certificates had expired. In addition, it offers a legal basis for those whose certificates are still valid to expand their scope of operation in Vietnam.

Article 170 of the 2005 Enterprise Law required the FIEs established before July 1, 2006 to renew their investment certificates within two years from the effective date of the law. If failing to do so, their operations would be confined to what was stated in their old certificates.

However, when the deadline passed, few FIEs had re-registered their operations. Therefore, the Government gave them a three-year extension, yet a lot of firms still missed the new deadline.

As of end-May, 2,916 FIEs among the total of 6,000 established under the Foreign Investment Law had not completed re-registrations as required.

Among them, 41 FIEs had their certificates expiring in late May. An additional 142 FIEs will reach their expiration dates in 2014 and 269 others in 2015.

The above firms have total pledged capital of US$18.5 billion and employ 446,000 workers. Most of them are in processing and manufacturing sector.

Source: SGT