National Assembly discusses draft Law on Pharmacy and Law on Data

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 | 16:55:06

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On the morning of October 22, at the National Assembly House, continuing the 8th Session, under the chairmanship of National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man, the National Assembly held a plenary session in the hall to listen to: Report and verification report on the implementation of the state budget in 2024, state budget estimates, central budget allocation plan in 2025, 3-year state budget - financial plan 2025 - 2027; Report on explanation, acceptance, and revision of the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy and discussing a number of contents with different opinions of this draft law.

National Assembly delegates of Thai Binh province attended the meeting.

Chairing the meeting, Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh said that the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy has received much attention from voters and National Assembly deputies at the 7th Session. There were 81 opinions expressed in groups and halls and 5 written comments. After the Session, the National Assembly Standing Committee directed the agency in charge of the review to coordinate with the agency in charge of the drafting and relevant agencies to actively organize research and consultation activities to absorb, explain, and revise the draft Law, consider and give opinions at the specialized legal session and the conference of full-time National Assembly deputies in August.

Suggesting discussion content, Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh asked National Assembly deputies to focus on discussing 6 issues with different opinions: On the State's policy on pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical industry development policy; on pharmacy chain business; on the rights and responsibilities of pharmaceutical businesses, foreign-invested pharmaceutical businesses; on drug and pharmaceutical ingredient registration; on drug price management...

Participating in the discussion, delegate Tran Khanh Thu, National Assembly Delegation of Thai Binh province, said that the draft Law submitted at the 8th Session had been reviewed by the presiding agencies, the drafting agency coordinated with relevant agencies to study and absorb a number of opinions; synthesize and explain the opinions of National Assembly deputies at the 7th Session, 15th National Assembly and the conference of full-time National Assembly deputies. Commenting on the rights and responsibilities of foreign-invested pharmaceutical business establishments (FIEs), the delegate said that Article 32, Clause 1 of the Law on Pharmacy stipulates that the activity of "trading in the preservation of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients" is an independent pharmaceutical business activity. Drug and pharmaceutical ingredient preservation service business establishments are also listed in Clause 2, Article 32 as a pharmaceutical business establishment independent of wholesale or retail establishments of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients. Therefore, when Clause 4, Article 53a stipulates that foreign-invested pharmaceutical businesses are not allowed to carry out activities of preserving drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients without clearly stating that these activities are related to sales, it has inadvertently excluded the business rights of FIE enterprises for an independent business activity not related to drug distribution as prescribed in the Law. According to free trade agreements such as WTO, CPTPP, EVFTA, ... Vietnam has not committed to opening up pharmaceutical distribution but does not reserve market access rights for foreign investors in the logistics sector. According to its WTO commitments, Vietnam has removed the restriction on the capital contribution ratio of foreign investors in the logistics sector after 7 years since joining - that is, since 2014, Vietnam has no longer restricted foreign investment in this sector.

If FIEs are granted more rights, it will affect the interests of domestic enterprises, especially those that have focused on investing in construction and providing warehouse and logistics services in the distribution of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients in the past. In addition, most countries in the region and in the world with developed pharmaceutical industries such as India, South Korea, and Singapore have implemented open-door policies in the field of pharmaceutical distribution and logistics, and these policies have had a positive impact on mobilizing and attracting foreign investment to improve the development capacity of domestic enterprises.

In the afternoon, under the direction of Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh, the National Assembly listened to the presentation, review report and discussed the draft Law on Data.

Participating in the discussion, the National Assembly deputies highly agreed on the necessity of developing the Data Law to perfect the law, regulate policies in developing and applying data in state management and socio-economic development; creating conditions for all people to benefit from digital transformation activities. The development of the Data Law project aims to create unity, synchronization, and effective use of data to serve state management and socio-economic development; serve the development of digital government and reform, reduce administrative procedures; socio-economic development; develop the National Data Center. The deputies also said that these are contents that are being regulated by a number of related laws such as: Law on Electronic Transactions, Law on Cyber Security, Law on Network Information Security, Law on Telecommunications and especially the draft Law on Digital Technology Industry. Therefore, it is recommended to consider and clarify the relationship between the provisions of this draft law and the provisions of current laws and the draft Law on Digital Technology Industry to define the scope of regulation to ensure consistency and avoid overlap...

Vu Son Tung

(Office of the National Assembly Delegation and Provincial People's Council)

Source: https://baothaibinh.com.vn/tin-tuc/1/210502/quoc-hoi-thao-luan-ve-du-an-luat-duoc-va-luat-du-lieu