After 12 months from the completion date of the progress in the investment policy approval document, Investment Registration Certificate, or investment policy adjustment approval document, adjusted Investment Registration Certificate, if the investor still fails to implement, the investment registration agency shall terminate the project or a part of the project.

Conditions for project suspension and termination are being clarified to ensure feasibility and practicality.

This is new content, which was drafted by the Law Drafting Agency to amend and supplement a number of articles of the Law on Planning, the Law on Investment, the Law on Investment under the public-private partnership model and the Law on Bidding. It is proposed to add to Article 48 of the Law on Investment on project termination.

That is, if the project only violates the progress compared to the commitments in previous documents, the investor will not be required to stop the project immediately but will have an additional 12 months to implement solutions to speed up the progress, ensuring compliance with requirements.

Mr. Dang Xuan Quang, Deputy Director of the Legal Department (Ministry of Planning and Investment), representing the Drafting Committee, said that this revision will clarify that projects that are behind schedule will be handled in one stream, and projects that cannot be implemented will have to be terminated in another stream.

“The goal is to push slow-moving projects forward, not to make things difficult. When there is a grace period and the enterprise does not implement it, it will have to be terminated,” Mr. Quang clarified. Because the goal of clarifying the conditions for stopping or terminating a project will help resolve the situation of many projects not being implemented for many years, freeing up land resources for socio-economic development…

In fact, in the process of reviewing the system of legal documents according to Resolution No. 101/2023/QH15 and within the framework of the Special Working Group on reviewing and removing difficulties and obstacles for investment projects according to Decision No. 1242/QD-TTg dated July 16, 2021 of the Prime Minister, many localities, including Cao Bang, Bac Giang, Hung Yen, Ninh Binh, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Binh Thuan, Tra Vinh... have discovered that the requirements and conditions for terminating investment projects related to implementation progress are not clear, complete, and in some cases are not really suitable.

Specifically, according to the provisions of Point a, Clause 2, Article 48 and Clause 2, Article 47 of the Investment Law, the investment registration agency shall terminate its operations in case the investor fails to comply with the contents of the investment policy approval and the Investment Registration Certificate, has been administratively sanctioned but continues to violate without being able to remedy the conditions for suspension of operations.

The problem is, if the reason for the suspension is the project's progress, the suspension in this case will further delay the project's progress, not addressing the goal/condition that needs to be overcome in the case the project is already behind schedule.

As a result, investors have no opportunity to remedy the conditions of suspension of operations, and state management agencies have no basis to consider the investor's attitude before deciding to terminate the investment project, because remedying the consequences is only possible if the project continues to be implemented.

Furthermore, Article 48 of the Investment Law stipulates the termination of investment project activities, including the termination of activities related to implementation progress. The investment registration agency shall terminate its activities in case the project has its land revoked due to failure to put the land into use or delay in putting the land into use in accordance with the provisions of the law on land.

However, this regulation is related to projects that have been allocated land or leased land, but does not apply to terminate projects that are many years behind schedule because investors have not yet implemented land allocation or lease procedures or have not coordinated in implementing compensation and site clearance to complete land procedures, leading to the situation of "suspended projects", projects that are many years behind schedule compared to the progress in the investment policy approval document, Investment Registration Certificate, etc.

However, there are still some unclear issues. According to the representative of Lao Cai Industrial Park Management Board, this 12-month grace period is calculated according to the overall project progress or according to the progress of each phase.

The representative of the Department of Planning and Investment of Thai Nguyen suggested that the termination of unfinished projects also needs to have a procedural process to ensure the final resolution of projects that are behind schedule or cannot be implemented, to ensure the conditions for inviting replacement projects...