Agricultural enterprises complain about suffering because of two sets of laws

Businesses hope that these two laws will be amended and unnecessary regulations will be abolished to reduce the cost burden for businesses.

Businesses suffer because of unnecessary regulations

The Law on Technical Standards and Regulations (effective since 2007) and the Law on Product and Goods Quality (effective since July 2008) are two important laws that have a profound impact on all production and business conditions of Vietnamese goods.

Specifically, there are 104 Laws, ordinances and decrees affected by the Law on Technical Standards and Regulations. 78 Laws and ordinances are related to the Law on Product and Goods Quality.

In particular, 100% of the Laws, ordinances, decrees and legal regulations related to the conditions for production and trading of agricultural and food products (such as the Law on Food Safety, Law on Cultivation, Law on Plant Protection, Law on Animal Husbandry, Law on Veterinary Medicine, Law on Fisheries, Law on Forestry...) and sub-law documents are all governed by the above two laws.

But after nearly 20 years of implementation, these two laws still have many shortcomings, causing a cost burden for businesses.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Duong, Chairman of the Vietnam Animal Husbandry Association, gave an example of the issue of imported goods into Vietnam requiring a conformity mark and a declaration of conformity, while other countries do not have this regulation.

Conformity declaration is the act of an organization or individual self-declaring that its products, goods, services, processes, and environments comply with relevant technical regulations.

To meet Vietnam’s requirements, imported goods from other countries must be produced in a “special” way, leading to additional costs and additional terms in import contracts. All imported shipments to Vietnam must be sampled for analysis and testing to declare conformity, resulting in additional costs, time and slowing down business opportunities for enterprises.

“Vietnamese goods are not the best in the world, but we are the only ones who do it. Even for goods that require samples to be taken for quality inspection before customs clearance, it is usually only applied by probability, so that samples do not exceed 5% of imported shipments,” Mr. Duong shared at the workshop “Some shortcomings in the implementation of the Law on Product and Goods Quality and the Law on Standards and Technical Regulations in the field of production and trading of agricultural products and food”, organized by the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations in coordination with the Vietnam Livestock Association.

In the field of fertilizer production, Mr. Ha Huy San, representative of Ninh Binh Phosphate Fertilizer Company, said that different fertilizer testing laboratories designated by the Plant Protection Department, when analyzing the same fertilizer sample, gave very different results. Some cases did not reflect the actual quality of fertilizer.

Meanwhile, local fertilizer management agencies only base on some incorrect test results to impose administrative penalties and handle recall requests, causing economic damage and product quality reputation of manufacturers.

Workshop on “Some shortcomings in the implementation of the Law on Product and Goods Quality and the Law on Technical Standards and Regulations in the field of production and trading of agricultural products and food”. Photo: Nhung Bui.

Amending the law in the spirit of administrative procedure reform

At the workshop, experts agreed that both sets of laws were issued a long time ago and need to be revised to remove obstacles and shortcomings arising from practice; and to promote standardization in the spirit of administrative procedure reform.

If the amendments are to be effective, the State, the agency in charge of drafting these two laws, must determine that this is a very important task, with a decisive impact on the productivity, competitiveness, and brand value of Vietnamese products and goods.

In addition, it is necessary to seriously research and consult legal regulations related to quality control and product and goods safety of developed countries and countries with market potential with Vietnam for application.

“This is a good time for Vietnam to have the best legal institutions and development policies, to improve the quality and competitiveness of Vietnamese products and goods. The drafting agency needs to be objective and seek the opinions of ministries, branches, localities, businesses, experts and scientists at home and abroad, especially industry associations,” Mr. Nguyen Xuan Duong, Chairman of the Vietnam Livestock Association, emphasized.

Feed manufacturers also proposed to remove the regulation on conformity declaration in both sets of laws. While waiting for the laws to be amended, management agencies should consider removing technical indicators that do not pose a risk (based on the results of more than 10 years of implementing the Law), and at the same time, they can add new "riskier" indicators to the standards to make the regulations more effective.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/doanh-nghiep-nong-nghiep-than-kho-vi-hai-bo-luat-d232500.html