Food businesses fear losses of thousands of billions of dong

With the registration procedure for the declaration, the increased number of documents can cost food businesses more than 1,616 billion VND/year.

The registration of a publication may be costly.

The European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham) and the Nutrition Food Subcommittee (NFG) have just sent an official dispatch to Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long, the Minister of Health, the Ministry of Justice, the Government Office, and the Prime Minister's Administrative Procedure Reform Working Group.

Food businesses fear losses of thousands of billions of dong. Illustrative photo

The document stated that Decree 15/2018/ND-CP has been assessed by the Government and the business community as a major reform achievement, saving millions of working days and more than 3 trillion VND/year, helping the food industry develop strongly, while improving food safety over the past 7 years.

However, food businesses have many concerns about the draft Decree amending and supplementing Decree 15/2018/ND-CP, which was released by the Ministry of Health for comments on February 19, 2025 (referred to as the Draft).

The draft has severely increased all three groups of administrative procedures on self-declaration; registration of declaration; re-registration of declaration; along with many unreasonable regulations, inconsistent with international practices; risking creating many new bottlenecks for production and business and seriously affecting Vietnam's agriculture and food processing sectors.

It is estimated that with the self-declaration procedure alone, the increased number of documents and time will cause a delay of up to 3 months and 7 days in business operations. With the declaration registration procedure, the increased number of documents could cost more than VND 1,616 billion/year, and the additional time cannot be determined.

In addition, the measures proposed in the Draft are completely inconsistent with the Solutions for developing laws on food safety stated in the Summary Report on 5 years of implementing Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP No. 1895/BC-BYT dated December 31, 2024, Section II, Point 1, sent by the Ministry of Health to the Government.

Specifically, the Draft does not have any provisions on food safety standards and regulations; there is no provision on chain risk assessment or traceability. Meanwhile, the Draft increases all three procedures regarding documents and compliance costs.

According to EuroCham, the Draft ignores the hottest issues with food safety today, which are fresh food, street food, and collective kitchens (the main causes of food poisoning), and only focuses on administrative management measures for prepackaged food (which almost never causes food poisoning), so its practical significance is very low.

3 recommendations from EuroCham

Making recommendations, EuroCham proposed that the Government direct the Drafting Committee to carefully study the opinions of associations in drafting the decree.

In addition, it is recommended that the Government chair a dialogue meeting between the Drafting Committee and the associations to review the final draft before submitting it to the Government for signing and promulgation.

“ Food safety is a very important issue, affecting 100 million people. The Government is also amending the Food Safety Law, planning to issue it in October 2025, followed by a Decree guiding its implementation. To avoid overlap and effectively reform the institution, it is recommended to amend the Food Safety Law first, then amend the Decree guiding its implementation,” EuroCham emphasized.

Previously, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) also sent a document to the competent authorities to provide comments on the Draft Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 15/2018/ND-CP. VASEP is concerned that the Draft Decree will create new bottlenecks for businesses and cause losses of thousands of billions of VND for businesses in the industry.

Source: https://congthuong.vn/doanh-nghiep-thuc-pham-lo-ngai-thiet-hai-hang-nghin-ty-dong-376370.html