Hanoi (VNA) – The President Office hosted a press conference on July 12 toannounce six laws that were adopted during the third plenary session of the 14th National Assembly.

Theyare Law on Foreign Trade Management, Law on Small and Medium-Sized EnterpriseSupport, Law on Technology Transfer, Tourism Law, Irrigation Law, and RailwayLaw.

With8 chapters and 113 articles, the Law on Foreign Trade Management will takeeffect on January 1, 2018, aiming to regulate State management over foreign tradeactivities without interference in specific activities of traders.

Forthe first time, the law affirms the freedom of import and export business ofmerchants, excepting for areas banned by the law.

Meanwhile,the Law on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) Support defines that SMEsare firms having maximum 200 employees, annual revenue of less than 300 billionVND and capital of under 100 billion VND. It also clarifies support to SMEs invarious fields, including credit access, tax, land use, market and technicalinfrastructure. It will become effective on January 1, 2018.

TheLaw on Technology Transfer, which will come into force on July 1, 2018, isdeveloped based on the Law on Technology Transfer 2006. The law has new mechanismsto assist and encourage businesses to renovate its technology, as well as ruleson commercializing scientific research and technological development outcomesand measures to develop the science and technology market.

Becomingoperational on January 1, 2018, the Tourism Law pays greater attention toensuring the quality of tourism services through regulations on grantingdomestic travel business licences, along with simplified administrativeprocedures.

Comprising10 chapters and 60 articles, the Law on Irrigation considers water as a kind ofgoods and irrigation services as input costs in production, thus raising publicawareness of using water effectively and economically. The law will take effecton July 1, 2018.

Lookingtowards further development of the railway sector, the Railway Law has 10chapters and 87 articles, up two chapters and down 27 articles compared to the2005 version. It is supplemented with clearer regulations on railwayinfrastructure building, railway business, railway industry, and specialrailway development.

Particularly,the law include first-ever regulations on high-speed railway, which serve as animportant legal framework for investment in the field in the future. The lawwill take effect on July 1, 2018-VNA