The Decree on Trade Promotion must be transparent to meet Vietnam’s international integration commitments, affirmed Deputy Minister of Trade Luong Van Tu at a symposium to gather inputs and comments of enterprises about the draft decree on providing detail guidelines on the implementation of the amended Trade Law about trade promotion. The symposium was held by the Ministry of Trade, the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) recently in Hanoi . Many regulations on promotion and advertisement activities remain controversial. Representatives of most enterprises at the symposium shared the same idea that the amended law should be transparent and clear without adding any procedures or licences to trouble enterprises.

Discussion to avoid a prolix decree

 

Regarding steps and procedures of promotional activities, paragraph 1 of Article 23 stipulates: Businessmen who organise promotional activities shall have to send written reports about their promotional programmes to the Departments of Trade of centrally-run cities or provinces, where they plan to organise promotional activities. This procedure, according to Do Thang Hai, deputy director of Vietrade, is simple with regulations on names of promotional programmes, locations, forms, products, time, customers and promotional prizes.

Similarly, in the advertisement field, Article 42 of the draft decree stipulates: Any product for commercial advertisement shall have to be registered with the Departments of Trade of cities or provinces, where enterprises want to advertise them. If enterprises want to advertise a product in two provinces or cities, they shall have to register with the Ministry of Trade or the Departments of Trade of two provinces or cities, where they organise commercial advertisement. The registration form is the Commercial Advertisement Application for Products, or Sample of Products.

Nguyen Khac Luan, director of the Vietnam Exhibition and Advertisement Company (Vinexad) said in an urgent voice: “We are facing great pressure on advertisement licences as we have to apply for four licences by the Ministry of Construction, the Department of Traffic and Public Affairs, the Department of Culture and Information, and the Department of Urban Area Planning. It takes us about three months to get the four licences. If we have to apply for the fifth licence, it will take us a longer time.”

Luan proposed that ministries and agencies should issue an inter-ministerial circular letter to settle the issue, instead. This will help reduce troubles for enterprises.

Law should be transparent

 

Tran Nguyet Dan from the Vietnam Advertisement Association pointed out a fact that there was an overlapping of laws and regulations.

Dan said that at present, there was the Ordinance on Advertisement, Decree N⁰ 32 providing regulations on advertisement activities, let alone circular letters N⁰ 17 and 18 to provide implementation guides by the Ministry of Trade. Now, there will be one more decree on trade promotion, stipulating advertisement activities. Therefore, it is necessary to consider carefully for avoiding any overlapping of laws, causing trouble for enterprises.

Also according to Dan, in other countries, advertisement activities are managed in a unique manner, which has not been done in yet. A lack of planning for advertisement activities, means that local enterprises place advertisement panels where they find a suitable space, while management agencies impose bans on areas they consider not to be suitable for advertisement panels. Dan went on to say that in Hanoi, hundreds of advertisement panels had been considered in violation of the regulations but enterprises have continued their violations because there were no plans and they could not wait for licences to miss opportunities.

Talking about this issue, Do Thang Hai recognised that advertisement was an outstanding. “We are making efforts to settle the issue completely,” said Hai. In the promotional field, the drafting board would reconsider managements needs but consumers’ interest should be protected against false promotion programmes and unfair competition while favourable conditions were created for enterprises.

To avoid an overlapping of laws and regulations, enterprises said that agencies and ministries should co-operate with each other to issue unique regulations on advertisement and promotion. When joins the World Trade Organisation (WTO), competition in promotion and advertisement will become fiercer. should observe the international law instead of taking advantages with its own procedures and licences. Deputy Minister Tu affirmed: “We will gather inputs and comments to continue to perfect the law draft on trade promotion. Until it is submitted to the Government for consideration, we will not issue any circular letter. If legal documents continue to be issued, later procedures will conflict with the law. The draft should be transparent and concrete to create favourable conditions for enterprises to develop. Therefore, the law should be clear in accordance with commitments made by during international integration.”

Kim Phuong