Subject to amendments to Law No. 03/2022/QH15 (“Law No. 03”), some contents of Law on Investment No. 61/2020/QH14 (“LOI 2020”) have been adjusted, supplemented by Law No. 03, in accordance with the development of the economy and with the change of relevant regulations. Some adjustments of the Investment Law 2020 that enterprise should note are as follows:

Adding projects under the authority to approve investment policies of the Provincial People’s Committee

Law No. 03 adds projects under the authority to approve investment policies of the Provincial People’s Committee, including:

• Investment projects on construction of houses, urban areas with a land use scale of less than 300 hectares and a population of less than 50,000 people; and
• Investment projects consistent with the law on cultural heritage regardless of the size of the land area and population, within the protected area II of the relic recognized by the competent authority as a national relic, a special national relic, except for special national relics on the list of world heritages; investment projects regardless of the size of the land area and population in restricted development areas or historic inner cities (identified in urban planning projects) of specialclass urban centers.

From 1 March 2022, trading in network security products and services is a conditional business line

According to the old regulations, the List of industries and trades with conditional business investment does not currently provide for the operation of “trading in network security products and services”. Meanwhile, this is a special and sensitive business area related to national security making it necessary and urgent to supplement this industry in the LOI in order to create a legal corridor to manage businesses, organizations and individuals trading in network security products and services.

Accordingly, Law No. 03 has added the business lines of network security products and services (excluding trading in network information security products and services and trading in civil cryptographic products and services) is a conditional business investment industry.

The promulgation of this new regulation is of great significance, creating a legal corridor to issue a Government Decree on conditions for trading in network security products and services, and is appropriate in the current period on national security strategy.