1. Cases of monitoring construction activities
On August 16, 2019, the Ministry of Construction promulgated Circular No. 04/2019/TT-BXD amending Circular No. 26/2016/TT-BXD on construction quality management and maintenance.
According to the Circular, monitoring shall be carried out:
- according to the construction design, technical specifications or construction method statement that has been approved;
- when the work has unusual signs in order to serve the assessment and determination of reasons, thereby taking remedial measures or preventing possible incidents during the construction process.
For example: the work has signs of collapse, sliding, settlement, leaning, cracking, etc.
Circular No. 04/2019/TT-BXD takes effect on October 01, 2019.
2. From October 10, 2019: Police conscription period reduced to 24 months
This is a remarkable content of Decree No. 70/2019/ND-CP on police force conscription.
According to this Decree, the duration of police conscription is reduced to 24 months (previously 36 months).
The period of service of non-commissioned officers and conscripted policemen may be extended by the Minister of Public Security for no more than 06 months in the cases stipulated in clause 1 Article 8 of 2018 Law on People’s Public Security Force.
The conscription period starts from the date of accepting ceremony; for those who do not participate in the accepting ceremony, the conscription period starts from the date they are accepted to their units and ends on the date of demobilization approved by competent authorities.
The period of desertion and time of serving the imprisonment sentence shall not be included in the period of service in the People’s Public Security Force.
Decree No. 70/2019/ND-CP takes effect on October 10, 2019.
3. Model life insurance contract no longer mandatory
In Decision No. 35/2015/QD-TTg life insurance is the 11th item on the List of essential goods and services that have to apply model contracts and general transaction conditions specified in Decision No. 02/2012/QD-TTg dated January 13, 2012.
However, Decision No. 25/2019/QD-TTg promulgated by the Prime Minister on August 13 repealed the aforementioned provision.
In other words, model contracts and general transaction conditions are no longer mandatory to life insurance.
Decision No. 25/2019/QD-TTg takes effect on October 01, 2019.
4. Public property used to make payment to investors of BT projects
According to Decree No. 69/2019/ND-CP of the Government, public property used to make payment to investors in construction projects under Build-Transfer contracts (referred to as “BT projects”) includes:
- Land
- Land, office building and other property on land (workplace) of:
+ State authorities, public service providers;
+ People’s Armed Forces;
+ Communist Party of Vietnam;
+ Socio-political organizations; socio-political and professional organizations; social organizations, social-professional organizations.
+ Other organizations that are established according to regulations of law on associations;
- Infrastructural property serving national and public interests (hereinafter referred to as “infrastructural property”)
- Other public property prescribed in Law on management, use of public property.
Decree No. 69/2019/ND-CP takes effect on October 01, 2019.
5. New regulations on signing contracts for supply of drugs through bidding
The remarkable contents of Circular No. 15/2019/TT-BYT on bidding for supply of drugs for public health facilities, which comes into force from October 01, 2019, are:
Before signing the contract, the procuring entity may increase or decrease the maximum quantity of drugs by less than 10% of the quantity of drugs in the bidding plan under the condition that there is no change to unit price or other provisions of bids and bidding documents.
The selected contractor shall provide guarantee for contract execution before the effective time of the contract. The bid security value in bidding documents and request for proposals is:
- From 2% to 10% of the contract value;
- From 2% to 3% of the contract value (as for small contract package).
The head of the health facility and the selected contractor shall implement the drug supply contract in accordance with regulations and ensure that at least 80% of the value of each part in the concluded contract shall be implemented etc.
6. Addition of construction cost management principles
Decree No. 68/2019/ND-CP on the management of construction costs takes effect from October 01, 2019.
Some additional to the principles of managing the construction costs:
- The form of investment, the execution method of the project must be ensured;
- The construction costs must be conformable with the project execution plan, the market prices in the area of the project and expected fluctuation of price during the investment process;
- The principles and methods used to determine the construction costs must be conformable with regulations of this Decree and the nature and characteristics of the infrastructure works the following programs:
+ The national target program for sustainable poverty reduction;
+ The national target program for new-style rural area development;
7. Reduction of members of the liquidation supervision team of People’s Credit funds
Circular No. 13/2019/TT-NHNN which amends a number of articles of Circular No. 23/2018/TT-NHNN on liquidation of assets of People’s Credit funds takes effect from October 05, 2019.
According to this Circular, the minimum number of members of the liquidation supervision team of People’s Credit funds is reduced from 05 members to 03 members. Such team shall consist of the following representatives of:
- The State Bank’s branches;
- Cooperative Bank of Vietnam;
- Deposit Insurance of Vietnam if it grants special loans to the people’s credit fund.
According to current regulations, the members of the liquidation supervision team are those mentioned above and the representative of the Department of banking supervision and inspection (of the province, city where such Department is located).
8. No provisions for loss on overseas investment
This is mentioned in Circular No. 48/2019/TT-BTC which provides guidance on making and settlement of provisions for devaluation of inventory, losses of financial investments, bad debts and warranty at enterprises, entering into force from October 10, 2019.
According to this Circular, the making of provisions must ensure the following general principles:
- Enterprises shall not make provisions for overseas investment.
- Provisions prescribed in this Circular may be recorded as deductible expenses when determining the taxable incomes of an enterprise in its annual financial statement and constitute a financial source for enterprises to offset possible losses in the plan year.
- Provisions shall be made and reversed when preparing the financial statement.
- Enterprises shall consider issuing regulations on the management of supplies, goods, investment and debts so as to reduce business risks.
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