Circular 2/2017 taking effect from 15 June 2017 regulates the cooperation mechanism in processing applications for investment registration and enterprise registration of foreign investors (cooperation mechanism). Under the cooperation, a foreign investor submits its applications for investment registration and enterprise registration and receives its registration certificates at applicable Department of Planning and Investment (DPI). Therefore, the procedure of investment registration and enterprise registration under the cooperation mechanism may reduce significantly the licensing workload of foreign investors compared to the original separate procedures of investment registration and enterprise registration  (separate procedure).

The cooperation mechanism governed by Circular 2/2017 is applicable when a foreign investor or a foreign-invested economic organization plans to:

• establish an economic organization,

• acquire shares of another economic organization as prescribed in Article 26.1 of Investment Law, or
• amend registration information included in both Investment Registration Certificate (IRC) and Enterprise Registration Certificate (ERC).

Should the foreign investor or foreign-invested economic organization choose to conduct the investment registration and enterprise registration under the cooperation mechanism, it will benefit from the following:

• submitting both investment registration application and enterprise registration application to the applicable DPI at the same time;

• submitting only one copy of documents repetitively required in both investment registration application and enterprise registration application, including identification document of individual foreign investor, document equivalent to ERC of economic organization foreign investor, and power of attorney to the person conducting the investment registration and enterprise registration; 

• receiving all instructions regarding the correction of applications of investment registration and enterprise registration at once from applicable DPI, and

• Receiving both investment registration certificate, which may be Acquisition Approval Letter or IRC, and ERC from applicable DPI by the end of the licensing procedure.

This post is contributed by Nguyen Hang Nga, an intern at Venture North Law.