Minister Lam Thi Phuong Thanh: Finalizing the draft Law on Cultural Industry Development to the highest quality before submitting it to the National Assembly.

Balancing the encouragement of creativity and investment attraction with the protection and promotion of traditional cultural values.

Presenting a summary of the report on the draft law, National Assembly member and full-time member of the Committee on Culture and Society, Duong Minh Anh, stated that the Committee on Culture and Society agrees with the necessity of enacting the Law on the Development of the Cultural Industry to promptly institutionalize the Party's views, policies, and guidelines on the development of the cultural industry; establish a complete legal framework for the development of the cultural industry; and contribute to promoting growth, innovation, and enhancing the nation's soft power.

We propose that the drafting agency continue to refine and revise the draft law, adhering closely to the principle that the law should only stipulate specific and superior mechanisms and policies to unlock resources for the development of the cultural industry; harmonizing the encouragement of creativity and investment attraction with the protection and promotion of traditional cultural values, ensuring political and ideological security, and national cultural sovereignty.

The Committee acknowledges and highly appreciates the drafting agency's proactive approach in developing the Policy Impact Assessment Report for the draft Law on the Development of the Cultural Industry.

However, this is a new draft law on construction, establishing many specific mechanisms and policies (including regulations on incentives and financial and investment support), directly impacting the state budget and the rights and obligations of organizations and individuals in many fields.

Therefore, it is suggested that the drafting agency supplement and fully assess the projected funding and human resources for implementing the new policies so that the National Assembly has a basis for consideration and decision.

Regarding the scope of application, the drafting agency is requested to study and determine that foreign organizations and individuals participating in or related to the cultural industry in Vietnam are subject to the provisions of this Law; at the same time, consider removing the business household entity to avoid duplication with the household entity.

The Committee on Culture and Society found that the draft Law was consistent with the Party's guidelines and policies, ensured national defense and security requirements, and institutionalized the Party's views and guidelines on the development of the cultural industry.

However, it is suggested that the drafting agency continue to review and fully institutionalize the Party's new policies directly related to several areas of the cultural industry such as cultural tourism , journalism, publishing, etc.

The draft law is consistent with the Constitution; apart from the prominent and specific policy provisions, the draft law is fundamentally consistent with the legal system. Further review in conjunction with related laws is recommended.

The Committee on Culture and Society found that the provisions in the draft Law do not contain any discriminatory content based on gender, and are consistent with the principles of equality, solidarity, respect, and mutual assistance for development among ethnic groups.

However, the unique characteristics of artistic work in the cultural industry are associated with female workers and workers from ethnic minority groups.

Therefore, the Committee recommends that the drafting agency continue to review and study the addition of regulations related to gender equality and ethnic policies according to each policy content; and add regulations on prohibited acts to strengthen the protection of female workers and ensure the goal of gender equality in specific articles and clauses of the draft Law.

Speaking at the session, delegates agreed on the necessity of enacting the Law; highly appreciated the drafting agency's incorporation of many opinions, and concurred with many observations and recommendations in the draft review report.

The delegates focused their discussions on six main policy groups stipulated in the draft Law; venture capital fund for the development of the cultural industry; training of human resources for cultural industries; cultural industry products with Vietnamese cultural identity…

The suggestions include clarifying the beneficiaries and ensuring that policies reach creators and businesses actually operating in the cultural industry. In addition, the quality of resource assessment needs to be improved, and recommendations regarding tax policies and production support in the review report need to be more specific.

We have fully incorporated the valid opinions of the delegates.

Speaking on behalf of the drafting agency, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Huy Dung explained and responded to the review comments and opinions raised by delegates regarding the draft Law on the Development of the Cultural Industry. He stated that the drafting agency will seriously study and incorporate the opinions of delegates at the session as well as the official review comments of the Committee on Culture and Social Affairs.

Explaining and clarifying the six groups of issues raised, Deputy Minister Nguyen Huy Dung stated that, regarding the policy-related issues, this is a very important group. When designing preferential policies, it is necessary to ensure that they are accurate and targeted, effective, and free from the risk of policy abuse.

Accordingly, the draft will design regulations for evaluating policy effectiveness annually. At the same time, it will clarify cases where a policy was effective in the previous year but is no longer effective in the following year due to objective factors .

Regarding the issue of household businesses, the Deputy Minister affirmed that household businesses and family households are not identical in terms of legal status and forms of participation in production and business. The separate regulations for these two categories aim to avoid overlooking creative entities participating in cultural industry activities, which include many different creative entities.

Regarding specific state management regulations, the Deputy Minister agreed with the proposal to simplify them, avoiding repetition of content already stipulated in general laws, and stated that the matter would be considered and revised accordingly.

Regarding cultural identity, Deputy Minister Nguyen Huy Dung stated that the development of assessment criteria is not a unique approach of the drafting committee but is based on international practice. Accordingly, UNESCO and several countries such as the UK, Australia, and South Korea have different approaches, criteria, and scoring scales for assessing the level of cultural identity in various fields.

Regarding the Development Investment Fund, the Deputy Minister stated that the draft Law is designed to create a legal framework for funds with credit guarantee functions, state investment funds, and private investment funds to participate in investing in cultural products with Vietnamese identity or key cultural products.

Regarding human resource development, Deputy Minister Nguyen Huy Dung stated that this content was developed with the participation of the Ministry of Education and Training during the drafting process, aiming to ensure consistency with specialized laws.

According to the Deputy Minister, the drafting agency must address the requirement of creating a breakthrough in human resource policy while avoiding conflicts with specialized laws. According to the draft, the Ministry of Education and Training will issue specific guidelines for implementation in accordance with specialized laws, based on agreement with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Huy Dung stated that the drafting agency continues to study and fully incorporate the opinions of delegates and the official opinions of the Committee on Culture and Social Affairs. In the coming time, after the official verification report is available, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will coordinate with relevant agencies to finalize the draft Law.

Complete the draft law with the highest quality.

Speaking at the session, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Lam Thi Phuong Thanh emphasized that, despite the relatively short time frame for drafting the Law, the agencies had exchanged ideas and resolved a large volume of work. The continuous research, incorporation of feedback, and refinement process demonstrated a sense of responsibility and coordination between the drafting agency and the National Assembly's agencies.

According to the Minister, this is a new, complex draft law with overlapping functions, and it also lays the foundation for the development of the cultural industry. Through the discussion process, although there are still some differing opinions on various aspects, the agencies have basically reached consensus on the important, core contents. This is an important basis for further refining the draft law.

Minister Lam Thi Phuong Thanh stated that from now until the draft law is submitted to the National Assembly, the drafting agency will continue to thoroughly review and incorporate as many agreed-upon opinions as possible, thereby perfecting the draft law to be submitted to the National Assembly with the highest quality.

The Minister also expressed his hope that the Committee on Culture and Society, the National Assembly's Ethnic Affairs Committee, and other National Assembly committees would continue to support and cooperate with the drafting agency in the process of finalizing the draft law. The Minister stated that responsible and frank feedback helps agencies shorten the time for discussions, reach consensus sooner, and finalize the draft.

Minister Lam Thi Phuong Thanh affirmed that the drafting agencies will continue to coordinate with relevant agencies to develop a high-quality draft law, contributing to promoting the development of the cultural industry in the coming time.

Concluding the discussion, the Chairman of the Committee on Culture and Social Affairs, Nguyen Dac Vinh, highly appreciated the sense of responsibility and efforts of the Drafting Committee. Many aspects of the draft Law have been reviewed and incorporated, focusing on regulating matters of a principled nature within the Law, while transferring procedural and technical content to detailed regulations, thus ensuring the feasibility and practical relevance of the draft Law.

Chairman Nguyen Dac Vinh suggested that the Government proactively prepare detailed regulations, especially decrees and circulars guiding the implementation, in order to ensure that the Law can quickly come into effect after its promulgation.