Unlocking capital flows for strategic and suitable projects

Nguyen Hong Chung, chairman, DVL Ventures

These changes promise to enhance decision-making speed, reduce compliance costs, and increase predictability for investors, while also presenting new requirements for local implementation capacity and inter-agency coordination mechanisms.

In many meetings with foreign investors, the most popular questions involve who decides on a project, and how long the process takes to get a clear decision. They accurately reflect the essence of the current competition in attracting capital: investors do not just compare incentives or land rental prices; they compare institutional delays and the predictability of procedures. Therefore, the first highlight of the new version would be decentralisation, accompanied by standardisation.

Decentralisation, if it involves transferring tasks from the central level to local authorities without standardised processes and inter-agency coordination, can easily lead to a situation where each locality interprets it differently. Investors will continue to face unpredictable risks, such as the same type of project handled in a different way between two localities.

That is why I highly appreciate the spirit of the amended law, which brings authority closer to practical realities while simultaneously requiring clear designation of responsible entities, boundaries of responsibility, and coordination mechanisms.

From a consulting perspective, I often tell investors that a project is not delayed due to lack of goodwill. It is delayed because procedures end up in loops, because they have to go through many agencies, and because there is no single responsible point of contact. The new law promotes a new approach in that procedures must have a lead agency and deadlines, and be interconnected and measurable.

When the decentralisation mechanism operates effectively, the benefits are immediately visible in three areas: decisions come faster with fewer layers; there are fewer back-and-forth submissions because criteria are clear; and investors can plan schedules because processing times are predictable.

However, decentralisation is also a test of implementation capacity. Localities that consider reformation as a competitive advantage will proactively standardise internal processes, improve one-stop-shop departments, reduce unnecessary paperwork requirements, and transparently disclose dossier statuses. Localities that follow old habits may turn decentralisation into dispersion.

Therefore, alongside decentralisation, what the market most anticipates after the law is not slogans, but a unified operational mechanism: clear procedures, sufficiently detailed guidelines, public timelines, and quick feedback mechanisms for resolving inter-agency issues.

Another popular issue is about why we need multiple permits, approvals, and certifications for the same activity. I usually respond that reforming procedures is not about abolishing state management, but about changing management tools. Besides that, the most important shift in tools under the Investment Law 2025 is the transition from pre-inspection to post-inspection in managing business conditions.

Pre-inspection means checking thoroughly first to be sure before allowing market entry; post-inspection means allowing faster entry, but managing through standards, data, and sanctions to ensure compliance during operations. This is a modern governance trend in many economies, which reduces market entry barriers and encourages competition, but increases compliance discipline and accountability.

I believe this shift has the most positive impact on two groups. The first group is small and medium-sized enterprises and supporting businesses, which often struggle with procedural resources as each additional permit impacts time costs and opportunity costs. Besides that, projects that need quick implementation to capture orders or market cycles: the simpler the procedures, the faster the decisions, and the higher the chance of securing contracts.

However, I always emphasise that post-inspection is only effective when three conditions are met at the same time. The first is clear technical standards so that businesses know how to stay on the right path from the start. Second is a capable data system and monitoring tools, so authorities can detect risks early and conduct focused inspections rather than blanket checks. The third aspect is sufficiently strong and consistently enforced sanctions, so that violators pay the price.

From the enterprise perspective, shifting to post-inspection requires a change in internal governance. Previously, many businesses were accustomed to the fact that once the permit is done, everything is done. In the post-inspection model, getting the permit is just the beginning: businesses must have compliance systems, record-keeping, change management, risk control, and be ready to prove compliance with standards during operations.

For management agencies, shifting to post-inspection is not easy either because if not careful, a phenomenon I call “re-pre-inspection” can occur. On paper it is post-inspection but, in practice, additional dossier requirements emerge, and additional request-approve rounds before operations. Then, reform loses its meaning.

Therefore, the key is to design post-inspection based on risk in the direction of focusing on areas with high potential impact (environment, safety, fire prevention, and security, for example), prioritising inspections based on data and criteria, and minimising the treatment of all businesses equally.