Insights / Updates

Stay up to date with legal developments in Vietnam.

What's New

Tax & Customs Alert - March 2024

In this Update, we highlight the following tax and customs developments in Vietnam: 

  • Notice on Impact on Tax Treaties Between Vietnam and other Countries 
  • Tax Exemption for Innovative Startup Enterprises – Special Policies for Ho Chi Minh City
  • Cambodia and Vietnam Special Preferential Tariff
A Guide to Renewable Energy in Southeast Asia

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations ("ASEAN") recognises the crucial role of energy in driving the region's growth. This has led to two key priorities: energy security and clean energy development. ASEAN aims for a 23% renewable energy ("RE") share by 2025 in the ASEAN Energy Mix (or TPES: Total Primary Energy Supply), with discussions underway for an even more ambitious target soon. Southeast Asia has abundant RE resources, but several hurdles remain, for instance infrastructure, the need for policy harmonisation, and community engagement. Each ASEAN country faces its own particular set of challenges and constraints in achieving its net zero emissions goal due to a myriad of factors including its stage of economic development, resources (financial and non-financial) and geographical constraints. As such, the policies and focus of each country in the deployment and development of RE may differ. In this Guide, we provide an overview of the RE landscape in the region and certain salient legal and regulatory issues affecting the development and deployment of RE in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Proposals for the Development of Law on Data and Law on Personal Data Protection

In February 2024, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) had published its proposals to request for the development of a Law on Data and a Law on Personal Data Protection. The Government has made the full text of these proposals available on its electronic portal, and has invited both domestic and foreign agencies, organisations and individuals to provide their feedback. The public consultation runs for 30 days from the date on which the proposals were published, i.e. until 26 March 2024 for the Law on Data and 1 April 2024 for the Law on Personal Data Protection.                                                                                                      

The proposals were issued in line with the tasks set out in the Prime Minister’s Directive No. 04/CT-TTg dated 11 February 2024, to promote the implementation of the project to develop the application on residential data and electronic identification and authentication to serve the national digital transformation for 2022 - 2025 (with a vision up to 2030).

These proposals were issued as a preliminary step for lawmakers to develop the legislation. While drafts of the laws are not yet available, the proposals include a detailed impact assessment which rationalises the requirement for these laws and include certain insight as to what may be anticipated in the draft laws to come. Any future drafts could potentially be shaped by the feedback that the Government receives in respect of the proposals.

This Update provides a high-level summary of the proposals for each of the laws, and MPS' vision and objectives (as set out in the proposals) in proposing these laws.