Seminar: Legal corridor for investment projects with land use and additional notes for investors

Vietnam has received diverse investment projects using land, especially real estate investment projects. These projects have made important contributions to the overall economical development. Recently, Vietnamese Government has issued legal documents: Decree 25/2020/ND-CP dated February 28^th, 2020, Circular 06/2020/TT-BKHDT dated September 18^th, 2020, and, most recently, Circular 09/2021/TT-BKH dated November 16th, 2021. These legal documents contribute to the legal framework perfection for bidding to select investors in investment projects using land. Therefore, in order to provide investors, enterprises in the field of construction investment, experts and researchers in law field should build an overview of the legal corridor for investment project selection. Investor selection, as well as points to note to prevent disputes from arising, on the morning of December 18^th, 2021, Faculty of Law, UEH School of Economics, Law and State Management coordinated with Construction Law Association Construction of Vietnam (SCLVN) and Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC) organized “Legal corridor for investment projects using land and notes for investors" Seminar in ‘hybrid’ form.

The seminar was pleased to welcome the attendance of Mr. Nguyen Nam Trung - Chairman of Vietnam Construction Law Association; Ms. Vu Quynh Le - Deputy Director of Procurement Administration Department of MPI; Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai - Deputy Director of Department of Judicial Assistance, Ministry of Justice; Mr. Pham Anh Tuan, Vice Chairman of Vietnam Construction Law Association (SCLVN); Mr. Chau Viet Bac - Deputy General Secretary of Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC), Deputy Director of VIAC Ho Chi Minh City Branch. On behalf of UEH, there was the attendance of Dr. Duong Kim The Nguyen - Dean of Faculty of Law, UEH School of Economics, Law and State Management. Along with nearly 30 participants attending in person, another 150 participants attended online on Zoom platform from State agencies, businesses, lawyers, lecturers and UEH students. In addition, on Facebook and Youtube VIAC platforms also have hundreds of direct followers.

Overview of the seminar

For her welcome speech at the seminar, Dr. Duong Kim The Nguyen - Dean of Faculty of Law, UEH School of Economics, Law and State Management asserted: “During the 20 years since the beginning of law training, UEH has always focused on legal training for businesses. In order to improve the quality of training and research, our Faculty of Law always strives to connect businesses, develop cooperative relationships so that we can receive and understand the difficulties and problems of enterprises, as a result, researching and proposing directions to amend law provisions to serve economic development and to ensure social security. Today's seminar is the result of cooperation between Vietnam Construction Law Society (SCLVN) and Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC).”

Sharing at “Legal corridor for investment projects using land and notes for investors” Seminar, Mr. Pham Anh Tuan - Vice Chairman of Vietnam Construction Law Society (SCLVN) affirmed that Land is a finite resource. In Vietnam, land is an asset owned by the entire people with land use rights of great value. Land displacement is referenced by many strict regulations, with many actors and complex processes. As a result, legal errors related to land can occur, with long-term consequences. Therefore, the seminar plays a very important role to provide investors, businesses in construction investment field, experts and researchers in this law field to build an overview on the legal corridor for Investor selection as well as note points so as to prevent disputes from arising.

What is more, Mr. Chau Viet Bac - Deputy General Secretary of Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC), Deputy Director of VIAC Ho Chi Minh City Branch gave a welcome speech to the participants and highly appreciated the importance of this workshop.

At this seminar, experts delivered 03 main presentations as follows:

Bài 1: “Lựa chọn Nhà đầu tư dự án có sử dụng đất” do bà Vũ Quỳnh Lê - Phó Cục trưởng Cục Quản lý đấu thầu Bộ KH&ĐT trình bày những nội dung chính của các quy định về lựa chọn nhà đầu tư dự án có sử dụng đất theo các văn bản mới gồm Nghị định 25/2020/NĐ-CP, Nghị định 31/2021/NĐ-CP và Thông tư 09/2021/TT-BKHĐT. Trong đó, bà đã chú trọng làm rõ các quy định về trình tự đấu thầu lựa chọn nhà đầu tư. Presentation number 1: “Investor selection in terms of projects with land use” was presented by Ms. Vu Quynh Le - Deputy Director of Procurement Management Department of Ministry of Planning and Investment regarding the main contents of regulations on selection of project investors that have land use according to new documents including Decree 25/2020/ND-CP, Decree 31/2021/ND-CP and Circular 09/2021/TT-BKHDT. Ms. Le focused on clarifying the regulations on the bidding process to select investors.

Ms. Vũ Quỳnh Lê is presenting her paper

Presentation number 2: “Investor's right to access land use rights” was delivered by Dr. Duong Kim The Nguyen - UEH School of Economics, Law and State Management. Dr Nguyen has further clarified the forms of access to land use rights from the state through land allocation and land lease and additional issues related to land-related procedure implementation after investors have been selected and signed contracts.

Dr. Duong Kim The Nguyen presents ‘Investor's right to access land use rights’

Presentation number 3: “Notes for Investors to prevent disputes arising from investment projects using land” was presented by Lawyer Dinh Anh Tuyet - Arbitrator of Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC). The lawyer pointed out the types of disputes related to investment projects using land as well as lessons learned from the results of dispute settlement over land use rights.

Lawyer. Đinh Ánh Tuyết presented online

In addition, Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai - Deputy Director of Department of Judicial Assistance, Ministry of Justice also participated in the speech, illustrating more issues related to the auction of land use rights and together with Ms. Vu Quynh Le to discuss the differences between auctioning land use rights and bidding on projects that use land.

Following the speakers' presentations, participants at the seminar enthusiastically asked questions to the speakers and also received clear answers.

In terms of her closing remarks, Dr. Duong Kim The Nguyen confirmed that: although the workshop clarified many issues raised, more new issues continue to open up from this workshop and need to be resolved in the next seminars. Dr. Nguyen hopes that the cooperation between Faculty of Law, UEH School of Economics, Law and State Management with Vietnam Construction Law Association and Vietnam International Arbitration Center, after this seminar, will be closer with the aim of contributing to activities that contribute to the improvement of policies and laws to better serve businesses, therefore, promoting a progressive economy.

Additional photos at Seminar: