For the first time, the Law on Prevention and Control of Harmful Effects of Alcohol Beverages (Law on Anti Alcohol 2019) was adopted by the National Assembly on 15 June 2019. Law on Anti Alcohol 2019 will take effect from 1 January 2020. Below are summaries of certain key issues of this:

·        The Law on Anti Alcohol 2019 provides new definition of spirit and beer; Accordingly, the scope of spirit in Law on Anti Alcohol 2019 is wider than that of Decree 105/2017 and includes spirits of less than 5% ABV;

·        Driving with alcoholic content in the blood or breath is prohibited regarless of the quantity of alcoholic content in the blood or breath;

·        Sales promotion of spirit and beer having 15% and more ABV are prohibited. However, it should be noted that under Decree 81/2018, promotion of all  spirits are prohibited regardless of its ABV level;

In recent years, there have been various cases where manufacturers of goods using imported components in Vietnam are held to have violated the rules of origin when using the phrase “Made in Vietnam” (e.g., Asanzo, KhaiSilk, and Seven.am). Therefore, it is important to understand the rules of origin applicable for goods sold in Vietnam market. In this post, we will discuss the rules of origin under Vietnam domestic law and the rules of origin under the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA).

The rules of origin applicable to imported and exported goods between ASEAN countries (including Vietnam) (ASEAN Goods) are provided under ATIGA. Whereas, under Vietnamese laws, there is no legal framework for determining the origin of goods manufactured and sold within Vietnam territory (Vietnam Domestic Goods). In particular, it is not clear which conditions or standards Vietnam Domestic Goods must satisfy so that they can be labelled “products of Vietnam”, “made in Vietnam” or the like.

According to Article 2(d) and Article 3(c) of WTO’s Agreement on Rules of Origin, WTO members must ensure that the rules of origin that they apply to imports and exports are no more stringent than the rules of origin they apply to determine whether or not a good is domestic. This means that Vietnam Domestic Goods are always subject to equal or more stringent rules of origin than those applicable to imports and exports (currently provided in Decree 31 of the Government dated 8 March 2018 detailing the Law on Foreign Trade Management on product origin (Decree 31/2018)).