National Assembly
/The National Assembly (NA) in Vietnam started yesterday! Democracy in action! This is the 8th session of the 14th NA. Big potential events include:
It will consider a feasibility study for the Long Than airport. This is a big new international airport needed just outside of HCMC. It is sorely needed, since the current airport is wildly overcapacity. At one point, this new airport, which was expected to cost $6.7bn (for phase 1), was going to open in 2020!
We already talked about one of the laws to be discussed: the labor code reforms (post here). It will be interesting to hear the discussion around this.
There will also be an amended securities law. This may include a new rule that allows a shareholder with just 1% ownership to access to “confidential” information on the business. I am not completely sure what this means, but I guess it is greater transparency for a wider range of shareholders. That would be positive. Overall, allowing more foreign ownership would be good, especially for banks, which need more capital.
There are also going to be discussions on amendments/supplements to a few important laws (for our purposes): The Law on Public-Private Partnerships, an amended Investment Law and a revised Enterprise Law.
Just a few other facts:
The NA is elected for a 5 year term. We are more than half way through this one. My own need for order means that it annoys me that the elections aren’t in years divisible by 5. The next is in 2021. It should be 2020!
Each year there are 2 sessions. The second session for 2019 started today and lasts until November 27.
From what I understand, the National Assembly meetings over time have become less of a rubber-stamp and more of an actual discussion. As we can see from the pie chart above, if party-line votes happen, then there shouldn’t be any surprises. But still, the actual discussions might tell us a lot about how leaders are thinking and moving.