Many businesses have backlog of documents and have to close down.

Following the concerns of many National Assembly deputies about fire prevention and fighting regulations causing more difficulties and problems for people and businesses, National Assembly deputy Nguyen Thi Nhu Y (Dong Nai) reflected to the National Assembly the opinions of businesses recorded at the meeting with FDI enterprises in Dong Nai province in March 2023 on this issue.

National Assembly delegates at the session.

Many businesses are facing difficulties, stopping operations, and closing down after new regulations on fire prevention and fighting standards and criteria were issued and took effect.

Enterprises believe that many new regulations on fire prevention and fighting exceed those of developed countries and have not taken into account the feasibility of applying them in Vietnam. Many projects were invested according to the old plan, ensuring the regulations in Decree No. 97/2014/ND-CP, but now require appraisal to comply with the new regulations issued in Decree No. 136/2020/ND-CP.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y said that this has caused many problems, increased time and compliance costs, many new standards and regulations on fire prevention and fighting have been issued without distinguishing the scale of the project, the nature of the construction, and regulations requiring the use of fireproof materials such as paint and fireproof mortar that have not been licensed in the Vietnamese market. Because new projects cannot be accepted, thousands of businesses and business establishments will have to close.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y cited data from the Department of Science, Technology and Environment of the Ministry of Construction, since Standard 06 took effect from January 16, 2023 to April, about 3 months, no project has been put into operation.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y spoke about fire prevention and fighting regulations causing difficulties for businesses.

Also related to this content, National Assembly delegate Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran (Binh Duong) said that many businesses reported a backlog of applications for fire prevention and fighting approval for buildings and factories that have not been accepted for operation by businesses due to not meeting the conditions according to new regulations, due to a lack of synchronization in implementation instructions between functional sectors.

Meanwhile, approved fire prevention and fighting records are one of the mandatory legal requirements for foreign partners to review and evaluate the enterprise's capacity before signing an order contract.

According to delegate Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran, many businesses have submitted their application for approval for many months but have not yet been approved. This has greatly affected the production and business activities of businesses, and at the same time, directly affected the jobs, income and lives of workers when businesses cannot sign orders.

Minister of Public Security at the meeting.

Fire prevention and fighting regulations and standards must be feasible.

It is necessary to issue regulations, norms, standards and criteria to establish principles of discipline and order in social management. Affirming this point of view, the delegate also suggested that it is necessary to study the feasibility of such regulations and standards when applied in practice.

In order for the people's and businesses' legitimate complaints and recommendations to be resolved with creative, practical solutions that can be applied in life, delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y suggested considering the appropriate time to apply new fire prevention and fighting standards, with a step-by-step roadmap for society to adapt, and not prescribing immediate application when conditions are not ready.

National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue chaired the meeting.

Along with that, when adjusting regulations, it is necessary to take into account the feasibility and compliance costs of people and businesses. If regulations are set too high, sometimes the compliance costs are greater than the benefits gained from reducing fires and explosions. There should be transitional regulations for construction investment projects that have been decided to invest before the effective date of the new standards, and are only subject to the legal regulations at the time of approval of the construction investment project.

Delegates also proposed to classify industries to apply standards: industries with high fire risk must have regulations on investment in fire prevention and fighting, industries with difficult fire risk, or even impossible fire risk should not be required to invest too much in fire prevention and fighting costs. Most of the conclusions are that the cause of fire and explosion is due to electrical short circuits, so it is recommended to soon develop and promulgate safety standards for design and installation of electrical systems in civil and industrial electricity.

THUY MAI