A draft Decree on logistics services in Vietnam (Draft Logistics Decree) has been circulated by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) recently. The Draft Logistics Decree, which appears to be a near final draft, will replace Decree 140/2007 on the same topic. The salient points of the Draft Logistics Decree include:

• The Draft Logistics Decree classifies logistics services in accordance with Vietnam’s commitment to the WTO. On the other hand, Decree 140/2007 has its own classification of logistics services which are not consistent with the description of logistics services under the WTO Commitments. So it is not easier to compare the Draft Logistics Decree with the WTO Commitments;
• The Draft Logistics Decree does not include certain logistics services which were provided in Decree 140/2007 (see the table below). Accordingly, it is not clear of these services are permitted or not permitted under the Draft Logistics Decree;

Decree 94/2017 of the Government provides a list of goods and services, which are subject to State monopoly. In other words, enterprises from private sectors including foreign-invested enterprises are not allowed to provide these goods and services in Vietnam unless they are appointed by the State authority to do so.

Under Decree 94/2017, the State will contemplate a goods or service to be State monopoly services only when there are no other investors who are interested in and capable to provide such goods and services. The list of State monopoly goods and services includes, among other things:

From 21 April 2017, Decree 46/2017 introduces a new set of conditions for establishment of domestic schools from kindergarten to university levels. The new conditions replaces various legislation of the same topics. However, these conditions do not apply to  foreign-invested schools (FIE schools). In additions, schools established before 21 April 2017 need not to comply with the new and, in many cases, stricter conditions. The table below summarises the key conditions for setting a domestic school under the old regulations, setting up an FIE school under Decree 73/2012, and setting up a domestic school under Decree 46/2017.

This post is contributed by Nguyen Linh Chi, an intern at Venture North Law.