Vietnam's private sector is still being strangled by regulatory instability, with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) telling the new government that legal uncertainty ranks as the single most-cited concern among nearly 900 business submissions. The complaints, distilled into 53 cluster issues across 10 sectors, were presented on July 18 at the first business conference convened by Prime Minister Le Minh Hung's cabinet.
Legal Limbo Traps Compliant Firms
The central problem VCCI chairman Ho Sy Hung described is a regulatory gap where old rules expire before replacement texts take effect. Businesses are caught in a bind: following the old rules creates legal exposure, while ignoring them triggers violations. This transition-period vacuum, compounded by high-frequency policy changes, leaves firms unable to plan with confidence. The VCCI chairman called for smoother handoffs between regulatory regimes so companies are not penalised for gaps that government itself created.
VAT Refunds and Pre-clearance Bottlenecks
Cash flow is a second major pressure point. VAT refunds are being blocked even for firms with legitimate transactions, because a partner's disappearance triggers automatic suspension of refund processing, effectively impounding working capital the company is owed. Separately, a pre-inspection mindset persists across customs and import controls: goods certified to international standards still face lengthy domestic checks. In at least some cases, imported chemicals have been held at port due to failures in the national single-window portal itself — generating demurrage costs that fall on the importer rather than the system.
Overlapping Agencies, No Single Owner
Projects touching investment, land-use planning, construction, and environmental approval must navigate each ministry sequentially, with no coordinating authority. VCCI documented that ministerial responses to 51 of its 53 recommendation clusters amounted to little more than quoting existing rules back to businesses — without addressing implementation failures. One illustration: many local offices still require paper filings alongside digital submissions, even though no regulation mandates the duplication. VCCI is pushing for a "one lead agency, one process, one outcome" principle for cross-ministry issues so firms stop playing messenger between departments.
Land Rent Surges Threaten Hospitality Sector
The Young Entrepreneurs Association of Vietnam flagged a different kind of regulatory shock: land-lease fees that have escalated roughly 35 times from the rates agreed at signing. For some members in the former Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan provinces, annual land rent now consumes about half of net revenue in 2025. A concrete example showed fees rising from VND 600 million in 2016–2020 to VND 4.3 billion in 2021–2025, then jumping again to VND 20.8 billion for 2026–2030. The association asked the Prime Minister to stabilise the methodology and cycle for setting land-lease unit prices, particularly for tourism and resort operations where long planning horizons make abrupt repricing especially damaging.
Green Credit: Fast-Growing but Still a Sliver
On a more constructive note, BRG Group chairwoman and SeABank vice-chairwoman Nguyen Thi Nga told the conference that outstanding green credit has already surpassed VND 700 trillion, growing at an average of more than 20 percent annually. Even so, it represents only about 4.3 percent of total bank lending — a share that reflects both early momentum and the room left to grow. She called for a formalised 2-percent annual interest-rate subsidy from the state budget for businesses and household enterprises investing in green or circular-economy projects, with explicit eligibility criteria and monitoring mechanisms to prevent abuse.
PM Sets Accountability Standard
Prime Minister Le Minh Hung closed the session by instructing ministries and provinces to eliminate regulatory gaps so companies always know which rule applies. He also directed that when one ministry resolves a business complaint, the answer must be circulated to all other ministries and all 34 provinces — preventing the same problem from recurring elsewhere. A broader mandate followed: a full sweep of rules covering investment, land, planning, construction, environment, procurement, taxation, customs, and sectoral inspection, with immediate resolution of issues within existing authority and an end to overlapping requirements.
Investor Takeaway
The summit signals that the Le Minh Hung administration views compliance-cost reduction as a growth lever, not just a business-relations exercise. For foreign investors and domestic manufacturers, the practical near-term watch items are: whether VAT refund processing speeds up, how quickly the single-window portal failures are fixed, and whether cross-ministry coordination on land and environmental approvals becomes genuinely unified. Progress on those specific bottlenecks — rather than the tone of the conference — will determine whether Vietnam's regulatory environment becomes meaningfully easier to operate in over the next 12–18 months.
