National Assembly discusses Pricing Law

HA NOI — National Assembly deputies agreed with the draft on Pricing Law at the morning session yesterday, even though certain concerns remained regarding goods and services required for stabilisation, price registration and appraisers.

Phung Quoc Hien, chairman of the NA Financial and Budget Committee, presented the report based on a supplemented and amended proposal.

Accordingly, lawmakers gave their opinions on stabilised goods and services, the responsibilities of State bodies in pricing assessment, pricing management principles, prohibition rules on pricing, standards for pricing appraiser and pricing assessment companies.

Under the amended draft, there were ten goods and services listed among those in need of stabilisation. They included final petrol products, power, liquefied oil and gas, nitrogenous fertiliser, vaccines to prevent diseases amongst animals and livestock, salt, milk for under-six chidden, sugar cane, rice as well as essential drugs as regulated by the Ministry of Health.

The new draft does not include commodities such as steel, iron, cement and hard seats for trains, among others based on competitiveness amongst these items being rather high.

"If the price of fertilisers fluctuate strongly, it could directly impact many poor farmers," deputy Trieu La Pham said.

She added that stationery should be stabilised to help poor pupils go to school.

Whereas, deputy Truong Minh Hoang suggested including pesticides on the list of stabilised goods as essential input for farmers.

Tran Du Lich, a deputy from HCM City, said that the law should clarify two definitions of pricing registration and declaration.

"Pricing registration means the State is eligible to not agree with pricing changes offered by enterprises, while pricing declaration means companies only inform and the State merely agrees with firm declarations," he said.

However, deputies Nguyen Thi Kim Thuy from central Da Nang City and Nguyen Manh Cuong from central Quang Binh Province said that pricing registration was essential, but that the State should not interfere with it too much due to the impact on company rights.

Lich added that content on pricing registration should be clarified to make sure it was suitable to WTO rules.

Some deputies also raised opinions on power prices. They said that the State should provide electricity retail price frames to ensure fresh competitiveness and avoid the monopoly of the State-owned enterprise.

The Prime Minister would issue rules on the pricing adjustment mechanism to ensure it was adjusted flexibly under the market mechanism.

However, some deputies claimed that there were no services on stabilised lists. About 26 attendees raised their opinions on the draft, which has five chapters with 47 articles.

NA operations

During the afternoon session, NA deputies discussed reforming and improving the quality and efficiency of NA operations and a tentative agenda to compile laws and ordinances in 2013.

Deputy Ngo Van Minh from central Quang Nam Province said there should be rules to ensure the law-making process runs properly and leaves sufficient time for NA agencies and deputies to revise and comment on legal drafts.

Deputy Nguyen Hong Son from Ha Noi suggested that although one NA committee was solely responsible for assessing law projects, it should distribute the information and collect comments from other NA agencies and deputies because their expertise could be of great help.

Deputy Do Van Duong from HCM City said along with reforms in meetings with voters, there should be a mechanism to ensure deputies deliver on their promises.

All deputies advocated more Question and Answer sessions as part of NA agency meetings so there would be more venues to address concerns raised by voters on pressing issues.
(source: VNS)