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Competition Law and Policy
Vietnam’s Competition Law was passed by the National Assembly on 9 November 2004, and came into effect on 1 July 2005. The law is the product of years of planning, dating back to 1997, and the result of a four-year drafting process that saw the circulation of fifteen separate drafts. The Competition Law is the first of its kind in Vietnam. Some of the law’s implementing regulations have yet to be enacted, and drafts of the regulations are being circulated.
The original impetus for Vietnam to adopt a competition law appears to have been the product of an indigenous recognition that market-based economies typically have competition laws, and that Vietnam’s economy and its people might benefit from such a law. In addition to domestic demand for the law, development of the Competition Law drew much interest, and varying degrees of support, from a myriad foreign donor organizations, including the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank, and the governments of the United States (primarily through the U.S. Federal Trade Commission), Canada, the European Union and its various member states, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.
The biggest challenge facing the development of Vietnam’s Competition Law is the question of what ends the law will actually serve. Some see in the law the potential to control large and unwieldy SOEs and state monopolies that make up a significant portion of the Vietnamese economy. Others see in the law the potential to check the threat to Vietnamese businesses from foreign competition, as Vietnam’s economy is liberalized in accordance with Vietnam’s foreign treaty commitments, such as the Bilateral Trade Agreement with the United States and its accession to the WTO in January 2007. All, however, appear to recognize that whatever its aims, Vietnam’s Competition Law contains many new concepts that are unfamiliar to Vietnamese businesspeople, those who advise companies doing business in Vietnam, and even the government officials charged with enforcing the law.
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