Under Vietnam Law, in order to setup a Foreign Invested Company including Wholly Foreign Invested Company and Joint Venture Company, Foreign Investor must apply for an Investment Certificate (hereinafter referred to as “IC”).
IC shall be deemed as the Certificate of Incorporation of Foreign Invested Company in Vietnam.
For obtaining an IC, you must prepare an investment project which comprise of a collection of proposals for the expenditure of medium and long term capital in order to carry out the investment activity in Vietnam and for a specified duration.
Then, the relevant competent authorities shall evaluate the legitimacy and the feasibility of such Investment Project to determine whether to grant the Investment Certificate or not.
Such decision shall be based on (i) legal framework including Vietnam’s WTO Commitments, Vietnam Investment Law, Vietnam Enterprise Law, Regulations applicable to specific industries as well as the master economic development plan of the city or province that the JVC shall register its head-office and (ii) Financial ability, investment capital to put in the Investment Project, facilities and human resources serving the implementation of such investment project in Vietnam.
We also further note that the procedure for establishment of the New Foreign Invested Company in Vietnam generally takes a rather long time in comparison with other countries in the region.
Our practical experiences show that although the total time for establishment of a foreign invested company as stipulated under Vietnam Investment Law 2005 is only 45 days, the actual process may take a longer time due to that the competent authority must consult other relevant ministries to evaluate the investment project.
