HCM City (VNA) –  Taxation andcustoms general departments must simplify their administrative procedures andeliminate unnecessary licences to attract more overseas Vietnamese investors,experts said. “Vietnamese taxation and customs policies werereformed in recent years to create favourable conditions for local and foreignenterprises to do business,” Peter Hong, deputy chairman of the BusinessAssociation of Overseas Vietnamese, said. “However, Vietnamese taxation and customspolicies change regularly, which makes it difficult for Vietnamese to haveinformation. Also, the overseas Vietnamese business community does not receivemuch information about incentive projects and fields,” he added. Hong said overseas Vietnamese send a huge numberof remittances every year to Vietnam, but only a small amount of the money wasused to invest and conduct business. For the first 10 months of the year, a total of 2.7billion USD of remittances were sent to HCM City, of which only 260 million USDwere channelled into investments. “It means that most remittances have been spentfor individual purposes and they haven’t created any new value at a time whenthe city lacks huge capital for socio-economic development,” he said. Chau Ba Long, general director of Minh Nguyenenterprise, said the Government had given priority to supporting industries,but machinery imports for these industries had not received preferential taxesand customs procedures as several other industries had. “More importantly, import licenses forsecondhand machinery are out of date,” he said. The law stipulates that enterprises cannotimport 10-year-old machines, but in reality many machines have operated over 10years and retain their quality and efficiency better than many new-techdomestically made machines. David Ngo, a businessman, cited the example ofautomated and engineering machines from Germany, France and Sweden. “Such machines operate for a long time and theirprecision is still much better than brand-new ASEAN products,” he said.“Furthermore, Vietnamese authorities regulate old and new technology based onthe amount of time, which is inappropriate. Such regulations have restrictedmany overseas Vietnamese from importing machines.” Many overseas Vietnamese businesspeople havealso complained that their vehicles such as cars and motorbikes could not bebrought into Viet Nam because of regulations on equipment, machinery andprivate vehicle imports that require time of usage rather than certain levelsof efficiency and environmental protection. They are also concerned about financialregulations which do not limit the amount of money that overseas Vietnamese canbring into Vietnam, but limit the amount that can be sent out. “The regulation allows us to bring the same orless amount of money than we brought to the country. But if the time period ismore than one year, we must have a licence from the State Bank of Vietnam. Howcan we benefit over the long term?” David Ngo asked. Bui Viet Cuong, an overseas Vietnamese fromSwitzerland, said: “Regulations are very necessary to ensure State managementin every aspect of life. The knowledge of overseas Vietnamese in finance isgreat, and relevant authorities should issue proper policies to encourage themto invest and promote the country’s development.” Nguyen Huu Nghiep, deputy head of the HCM City’sCustoms Department, said that authorities had tried to reform administrativeprocedures, especially online services, to reduce cumbersome procedures for overseasVietnamese and investors, and have regularly organised forums to hearcomplaints. “We will submit all proper and practicalcomplaints to relevant ministries for adjustment in order to create the mostfavorable conditions for investors,” he added.-VNA