Regulations on special investment procedures effective from January 15, 2025

On November 29, 2024, the National Assembly passed Law No. 57/2024/QH15 amending the Law on Planning, the Law on Investment, the Law on Investment under the public-private partnership model and the Law on Bidding 2024, and taking effect from January 15, 2025. Through this article, Gia Luat updates new regulations on special investment procedures added to the Investment Law 2020

Investment projects are allowed to apply special investment procedures:

Except for investment projects under the authority of the National Assembly to approve investment policies, investors have the right to choose to register investment according to special investment procedures for projects in industrial parks, export processing zones, high-tech zones, concentrated information technology zones, free trade zones and functional areas in economic zones in the following 02 investment groups:

• Investment in construction of innovation centers, research and development (R&D) centers; investment in semiconductor integrated circuit industry, and technologies used in design and manufacturing of integrated circuits (IC) and their components, components and circuits of printed electronics (PE), chips and semiconductor materials.
• Investment in high technologies given priority for investment and development, and manufacturing of products on the list of recommended high technology products as decided by the Prime Minister.

Implementation procedures: Investors submit investment registration documents to the Management Board of industrial parks, export processing zones, high-tech zones, and economic zones.

Some advantages of special investment procedures:

• Investment projects registered under special investment procedures do not have to carry out procedures for investment policy approval, technology appraisal, environmental impact assessment report preparation, detailed planning, construction permit issuance and procedures for approval, acceptance and permission in the fields of construction, fire prevention.
• Because the above special investment procedures are applied to sectors in the investment incentive industry, investors can enjoy the following forms of investment incentives:
  • Corporate income tax incentives, including application of a lower rate of corporate income tax for a certain period of time or throughout the investment project execution; exemption from and reduction of tax and other incentives prescribed by the Law on Corporate Income Tax.
  • Exemption from import tax on goods imported to form fixed assets; raw materials, supplies and components for manufacturing purposes in accordance with regulations of law on import and export tax
  • Exemption from and reduction of land levy and land rents
  • Accelerated depreciation, increasing the deductible expenses upon calculation of taxable income.