On 2 October 2020, the Ministry of Information and Communications (“MIC”) released the Ninth Version of the Draft Decree amending Decree No. 06/2016/ND-CP (“Decree No. 06”) on Management, Provision and Utilization of Radio and Television Services (“Draft Decree”). Compared to the previous version, this version is much more flexible in regulating offshore entities providing services to end-users in Vietnam on a cross-border basis. The Draft Decree is written broadly enough to cover new services that are not yet considered under the WTO framework. This demonstrates the efforts of the MIC to attend to the business opportunities for offshore service providers while ensuring their compliance with Vietnamese laws, creating a fair competition for both onshore and offshore service providers.
To start with, the Draft Decree amends 15 out of 32 Articles under Decree No. 06, but apart from these amendments to services and content regulations, the Draft Decree also reduces the period of time allocated to relevant authorities to assess entities’ applications and other dossiers.
Please see below for our detailed analysis of the notable and innovative changes under the Draft Decree.
