Vietnam Sanitary and Phytosanitary Notification Authority and Enquiry Point

The draft Circular was developed to complete the legal framework for the management of aquatic breeds, aquatic feed, and environmental treatment products in aquaculture, while simultaneously implementing decentralization of power and levels and administrative procedure reform in line with the orientation of draft laws amending legislation in the agricultural and environmental sectors, decrees guiding the Law on Fisheries, and Prime Ministerial decisions on cutting and simplifying administrative procedures.

Accordingly, the draft focuses on shortening the processing time for several key administrative procedures; specifically: the time for granting aquatic breed export licenses is reduced from ten days to seven days, while removing the requirement for Prime Ministerial approval and decentralizing authority to the Minister; the time for granting aquatic breed import licenses is reduced from five days to four days, with no requirement to resubmit certain digitized documents, and authority is decentralized to the Chairmen of Provincial People's Committees. Similarly, the procedure for aquatic feed import licenses is also shortened from five days to four days and decentralized to the Chairmen of Provincial People's Committees.

In addition, the draft reviews and amends regulations to align with the two-level local government model, unifying terminology and authority as per National Assembly resolutions and Government decrees on state apparatus reorganization. The draft also supplements and updates specialized management lists, including the List of aquatic species allowed for trading in Viet Nam, the List of aquatic species banned from export, and the List of aquatic species for conditional export; it adds regulations on naming aquatic breeds and specifies cases for the re-issuance of licenses for certain procedures.

Furthermore, the draft addresses practical obstacles arising from management practice,