VietNamNet Bridge – President Nguyen Minh Triet announced three laws on nationality, civil sentences and special consumption tax yesterday.

Minister of Justice Ha Hung Cuong. (Photo: VNN)

The Law on Viet Nam Nationality was approved by the National Assembly on November 13, 2008. It includes six chapters and 44 articles. The law defines who Vietnamese citizens are, their rights and duties to the State, as well as the State’s responsibility to them.

According to the Presidential Office, the law includes many new regulations for Vietnamese living abroad. The law continues to affirm the one-nationality principle, but exceptions can have dual nationalities, including foreigners who are given the President’s permission to have Vietnamese nationality, and Vietnamese who live abroad and have foreign nationalities already.

Foreigners who have no nationality and have lived in Viet Nam for 20 years or more will be allowed to have Vietnamese nationality. The law will be valid from July 1, 2009.

The Law on Civil Sentence Implementation was approved by the NA on November 14, 2008. It includes nine chapters and 183 articles.

The law extends the validity time to implement civil sentences to five years, instead of the previous three years.

To prevent people from disobeying their terms, the law states the rights and procedures to apply measures to assure sentences are implemented effectively. The law will be valid from July 1, 2009.

The NA issued the revised Special Consumption Tax Law to meet socio-economic development demands of the country, helping stabilise the macro economy, reduce trade deficit and control inflation.

The law also aimed to implement Viet Nam’s WTO commitments and assure budget collection for the State.

The law covers cars with less than 24 seats, motorbikes with cylinder capacity of over 125cc, aeroplanes and yachts (except those used to transport commodities, passengers and serving tourism).

The law will raise tax rates from 30 to 40 per cent for discotheques; from 25 to 30 per cent for casinos, computer games and betting; from 10 to 30 per cent for golf courses.

(Source: Viet Nam News)