The Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment (MONRE) recently published a draft new land law (Draft) for collection of public comments before submitting the Draft to the National Assembly. Among other notable changes introduced by the Draft, the change to regulations on land rental payment method may attract attention. While this issue has been briefly covered by our comment of draft Land Law, below are our in-depth comments on the proposed change:

• Under the Draft, the land users, who lease land from the Government, may select to pay land rental on either annual basis or lump-sum basis for the whole term if their lands are (i) lands for implementing projects of agricultural manufacturing, forestry, aquaculture, salt production, or (ii) lands for industrial zone, industrial cluster, export-processing zone, or hi-tech zone. With respect to other types of land, the only option available to the land user is payment of land rental on an annual basis. This regulation appears to be an unwelcome change given that under the current Land Law 2013, the land users are free to choose a suitable land rental payment method regardless of their types of land. In addition, this gives rise to several issues as discussed below.