Aplicación de scaffolds en Ingeniería de tejidos: estado del arte

216. The Vietnam land program included two related projects: Design Stage (543844) and Stage 2 (567247). The Design Stage (February 2006 – March 2009) centered on an assessment of the impact of the 2003 Land Law on private sector development and offered guidance on revisions to the law. Stage II (May 2009 – June 2011) included a national and provincial component. At the national level, IFC led a review of land and construction procedures under Project 30. At the provincial level, IFC assisted three “pilot” provinces to streamline the process for accessing land. The program (Design Stage and Stage II) was completed in June 2011 at a cost of roughly US$1.1 million.

Background

Despite reforms over the past two decades, acquiring and developing land remains a challenge in Vietnam.

217. Over the past two decades, the Government of Vietnam has taken steps to transition from a state-run economy to a market-oriented economy with socialist characteristics (doi moi). As part of this process, the government has introduced reforms to formalize land use rights and develop a functioning land market within the context of state ownership. Reforms have been adopted incrementally. The 1987 Land Law introduced land use rights certificates (LURCs), which were issued to land users as the legal basis for using the land. The 1993 Land Law allowed LURCs to be transferred, exchanged, leased, mortgaged, and inherited. The 2003 Land Law took steps to further develop the land market and remove constraints to private sector development. The law had three main objectives: encourage investment and economic development, develop an efficient land market within the context of state ownership, and maximize the utilization and value of land.371

218. While progress has been made, there are still myriad obstacles to accessing land: lack of clarity of land use rights, scarcity of land available to private businesses, distortions in land prices, inefficient land use planning, and complex land-related administrative procedures. These problems are manifested, in part, in the high rate of informality: Studies have found that 70 – 80 percent of land transactions in Vietnam are informal – i.e., concluded without registration or issuance of LURCs.372

In 2005, the government asked IFC to review the Land Law and assist in further reforms.

219. In 2005, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) began preparing for the next land law, which was (at the time) expected to be passed within the next three to five years. In March 2005, MONRE requested assistance from IFC to assess the impact of the 2003 Land Law on private sector development and assist in the next phase of reforms.373

220. Following the request from MONRE, IFC undertook a study to develop a methodology for carrying out the assessment of the Land Law. Completed in October 2005, the methodology document outlined five activities: i) legislation review and administrative procedures mapping; ii) interviews with government officials; iii)

371

Ivan Nimac, Stephen B. Butler, Huong Mai Huynh and Lan Nguyen Van, Vietnam: Improving Business Access to Land Step by Step, c. December 2010.

372

Tenev et. al. 2003, p. xiii and Carlier & Son, 2004, p. 5, as cited in written comments from IFC, 4 August 2011. 373

property listing analysis; iv) business intermediary survey; and v) enterprise data survey.374 While all activities were deemed important, the document paid particular attention to working out the appropriate sample sizes and sampling strategies for the surveys.

221. In November 2005, the Vice Minister of MONRE sent a follow-up letter to IFC reaffirming the ministry’s commitment to working on land reforms.375 That same month, land administration was put at the top of the agenda at a meeting of the National Assembly. In light of the apparent momentum for land reforms, IFC approved the project in February 2006.

Program Design and Implementation

Chronology

222. Table 36 presents a chronology of the land program in Vietnam. Table 36. Chronology

Date Milestone

8 Mar. 2005 Letter of request from Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) 13 Oct. 2005 Methodology document

26 Nov. 2005 Letter from MONRE reaffirming the ministry’s commitment 19 Feb. 2006 Approval of Vietnam Land Program Design Stage (543844) Mar.-Dec. 2006 Preliminary analysis; survey design and implementation Mar. 2007 Analytical report and survey data report

25 May 2007 Decree 84 of 2007

Nov. 2007 IFC offers recommendations for “topics for consideration” to MONRE Taskforce on Revising the Land Law 22 Jan. 2008 First MOU with Bac Ninh

28 Feb. 2008 First MOU with Thua Thien Hue

May 2008 Consultative workshops on revisions to the Land Law; MONRE taskforce begins drafting amendments July-Aug. 2008 IFC provides comments on proposed amendments to the law

Sep./Oct. 2008 MONRE postpones submission of the amendments until 2009 (subsequently deferred to 2012/13) 22 Dec. 2008 Letter of request from Thua Thien Hue for continued support from IFC

15 Jan. 2009 Letter of request from Bac Ninh for continued support from IFC 31 Mar. 2009 Completion of Stage 1

14 May 2009 Approval of BEE-Vietnam Land Stage 2 (567247) 28 July 2009 Second MOU with Bac Ninh

4 Aug. 2009 MOU and kickoff meeting with Binh Dinh 17 Aug. 2009 Second MOU with Thua Thien Hue

27 Nov. 2009 Bac Ninh PPC issues Regulation No. 165/2009

Nov. 2009 IFC leads the Land and Construction Working Group in a review of “priority” procedures 8 Apr. 2010 Binh Dinh PPC issues Decision No. 159

Apr. 2010 IFC leads a review of additional land-related procedures 2 June 2010 Government issues Resolution No. 25/NQ-CP

31 Dec. 2010 Thua Thien Hue PPC approves Decision 5809 May 2011 Land toolkit

2 June 2011 Binh Dinh PPC issues a revised decision (Decision 12) June 2011 Dissemination workshops for the land simplification toolkit 30 June 2011 Completion of Phase II

Aug. 2011 Outcome and Assessment Report Source: Nexus Associates based on program files

374

Viet Nam – Review of the practices resulting from the Land Law 2003 and their impact on PSD, Baseline Study Methodology, 13 Oct. 2005.

375

Program Design

The program was structured in two stages.

223. The original project approval document for the Design Stage envisioned that the land program would be carried out as two related projects. It was envisioned that the Design Stage (543844) would assess the impact of the 2003 Land Law on private sector development in Vietnam.376 The results of the study were intended to set the stage for reforms to be undertaken in Stage II (567247). The Design Stage was approved in February 2006.

224. Shortly before Stage II was approved, IFC decided to phase out the Access to Land product following the FY09 corporate product review. Nonetheless, it was decided to proceed with Stage II given the work that had already been completed, the requests for assistance from the government, and continued funding from AusAID. As stated in the approval document for Stage II: “There is an obligation to both the client government and the donor to see the project through its second phase.” With this in mind, Stage II was approved in May 2009. The project had a provincial component and a national component. At the provincial level, IFC would work with three provinces to simplify land administration procedures. The objective of the work was as follows: “By the end of 2010, the project aims to have a decision by the provincial governments to adopt a simplified and coordinated process of business access to land. That decision is expected to reduce the amount of time for businesses to access land from nearly 200 days to around 100 days.”377 According to the approval document: “Having tested the simplified process in certain provinces,” the project “will adapt and scale up the model process and best practices in order to extend the benefits of land simplification to other provinces.” The objective for the national-level work was as follows: “By 2013 (two years after project completion), the project targets to have at least half of the provinces of the country (32 provinces) to adopt the model process and best practices of land procedural reforms. This will translate into approximately $602,000 to $1.2 million savings for private sector.”378,379

225. The total program budget was roughly US$1.1 million, including US$670,000 for the Design Stage (revised upward from an original budget of US$470,000) and US$421,679 for Stage II (revised downward from US$450,000).

Program Implementation

IFC conducted an assessment of the 2003 Land Law.

226. The Design Stage commenced with an initial legal review and mapping of selected land-related procedures; inventory of land studies and data; development of survey instruments and interview guides; and recruitment

376

The approval document also envisioned that the project would develop “an ongoing monitoring and evaluation system of the impact of the law on PSD.” However, according to IFC, “After the assessment/study *of the land law], we decided not to proceed [with establishing an M&E system], as this activity was being supported by [SIDA-funded] SEMLA [Strengthening Environmental Management and Land Administration]. Also, this would require significant investment of hardware/software and we were not in a position to support that.” Written comments from IFC, 4 August 2011.

377

The baseline figure of 200 days excludes compensation and resettlement, which takes an additional 200 days. 378

The target is based on the following assumptions: 30 firms per province (based on records in Bac Ninh for 2006 and 2007), US$5.36 daily wage, a reduction of 93 business days, and a reduction of US$129.41 in other costs (e.g. travel expenses, bribes, etc.). Based on these assumptions, the analysis projects cost savings of US$626.74 per firm or US$18,802 per province, and extrapolates US$1,184,534 for 63 provinces or US$602,000 for 32 provinces.

379

According to IFC, “The number 32 was suggested as it represented about 50% of the provinces of the country (63) and it was also based on our previous experience with the business entry reform handbook whereby about 33 provinces expressed in a survey that they had adopted some reforms recommended [in the handbook].” Ibid.

of international and local consultants (March – July 2006). The next two months (August – September 2006) focused on training the survey team, piloting the survey instruments in two provinces, and finalizing the data collection manual and methodology documents. The survey was administered in October – December 2006 to three groups of stakeholders in 12 provinces: land-holding SMEs (n=665), land market intermediaries (n=65), and government officials in 12 DONRE offices. A local consulting firm (TECOS) administered the survey; IFC’s land policy advisor designed the survey questionnaires, analyzed the data, and authored the reports.

227. In March 2007, IFC published two reports based on the survey results.380 Viet Nam – Better Land

Administration for Private Sector Development (Design Stage): Summary and Analysis of Survey Research

identifies issues raised in the survey and offers proposals for future work. The report includes the following sections: introduction; overview of the success of the Land Law 2003; SME land market (land tenure and land acquisition); informal land markets; security of property rights; land use planning; DONRE management; administrative procedures; and policy implications / recommendations for further action. The second report – FIAS/MPDF/MONRE Project on SME Access to Land in Viet Nam: Summary of Survey Data – presents a series of graphs that summarize the information in the analytical report.

228. Overall, the study concluded the following:

“With regard to the current attempt to create efficient market mechanisms within the constraint of state ownership of land (‘socialist-oriented market institutions’), the effort is immature, and the market that exists fails to satisfy all participants, but it appears to be developing at a reasonable pace. The question may not be whether market mechanisms are developing at a good pace, but whether the mechanisms that do develop will ever fully overcome the inefficiencies inherent in the state land monopoly and the significant state interventions in land markets that […] Business land users are not satisfied and often see land availability and land prices as a barrier to their growth.”381

229. The rest of the report contains more detailed findings, as summarized in Table 37. Based on the findings, the report draws implications for land policy and legislation.382 The report concludes by suggesting possibilities for further reform activities.

380

Stephen Butler, FIAS/MPDF/MONRE Project on SME Access to Land in Viet Nam: Summary of Survey Data, March 2007 and Stephen Butler, Viet Nam – Better Land Administration for Private Sector Development (Design Stage), Summary and Analysis of Survey Research, March 2007.

381

Summary and Analysis of Survey Research, op. cit. 382

Policy implications are offered for a wide variety of topics: facilitating secondary market transactions; increasing flexibility in land recovery procedures; increasing the amount of land zoned for business use; improving land market infrastructure; further reducing or eliminating investment licensing for small businesses; improving LURC issuance; further developing leasing policy; simplifying legal concepts; installing IT-based management information systems in land administration offices; creating expanded one stop shops; creating better land inventories and making the information more widely available; taking additional steps to simplify land processes; improving land use planning; and allowing for more speculative property development in industrial zones. Condensed from the Summary and Analysis of Survey Research report, op. cit.

Table 37. Summary of Conclusions

Topic Conclusions

Land tenure and acquisition of land rights

 There is a choice among various forms of land tenure in the current market, an objective of the Law on Land (LOL), and all forms of tenure except the so-called pre-paid leases are found in significant numbers. The SMEs appear to be aware of the benefits of the different forms of tenure.

 There is a preponderance of rights of long term and stable use among the SMEs.

 Almost 35% of the SMEs sub-lease land from another private sector right holder, suggesting emergence of a robust secondary land market.

 About 70% of the SMEs interviewed obtained their land rights in secondary market transactions. Only a small portion obtained land in industrial zones, but a significant number obtained land directly from provincial and local governments, which appear to be serving a broader segment of the SME market than industrial zones (IZs).

 The government is the main source of large land parcels.

 In their secondary market transactions, the main problem identified by SMEs is simply finding the land. Mechanisms for locating business land are somewhat underdeveloped.

 With regard to investment in the land generally, the preliminary analysis suggests that the level of investment is typically high and may be related to some extent to the form of tenure and perception of security of land rights.

Informality  The survey sample was selected to assure representation of businesses that did and did not hold a LURC in a proportion of roughly 60/40. Practically all of those businesses that held a LURC were long term and stable use (LTSU) holders, and those that did not hold a LURC were lessees or sub-lessees. Of those that did that did not hold a LURC, most held a lease or other legal document certified by a notary or local government official, and believed they could trust their lease and their landlord. Under current law it is not required to register a secondary market lease.

 The decision not to register land rights appears to be a function of several factors, including costs (land use fees, transfer taxes, higher land prices, etc.) and a sense that land rights are sufficiently protected without formal registration. There are not a great many disadvantages to avoiding registration at this time. At the same time, many land users believe that registration provides greater transparency and enhances security, facilitates transactions and increases land value.

 There are relatively few land disputes among the SMEs interviewed.

 Among the SMEs interviewed mortgage finance per se appears to be of only moderate importance at this time as an inducement to register land rights.

 Practically all business land acquisition today is user driven, and very few land holders enter into subsequent transactions with their land.

 Preliminary analysis of the data suggests that there is a higher level of investment in real assets by those who hold a LURC. However, possession of the LURC is highly correlated with possession of a LTSU right, and it is likely that the long duration and “ownership” characteristics of the LTSU are the better explanation for the level of investment.

Security of land rights

 There is a relatively high perception of security of land rights among the SMEs interviewed.

 Holders of rights of long term and stable use and pre-paid limited duration use feel more secure than holders of leases. It would appear from the data that most new construction occurs on land which is held under LTSU, but a significant among of new constructions occurs on leased land as well.

 Land holders feel more insecure against claims of government and landlords than they do against adjoining land holders and other claimants. This may reflect the fact of relatively frequent government land recovery operations for economic development purposes, at compensation levels with which many respondents disagree.

 Most insecurity is felt by tenants, and among them by sub-lessees of private sector landlords. This many reflect short lease terms and a view that legal protection of contractual lease rights is considered to be inadequate or uncertain.

 Against claims of the government the LURC is considered to be a more important document for protection of rights than against other private sector claimants such as neighbors and former owners.

 Despite a relatively high sense of security, about half of all SME respondents stated they would invest more in their businesses if their land rights were more secure.

Topic Conclusions

Land use planning  Less than half of the SMEs were familiar with the general land use plan, but practically all know their own permitted land use and claimed to use the property legally.

 About 3% of businesses actually participated in public opportunities to discuss the plan.

 About 21% of those who were aware of the plan claimed to have been damaged by planning activity, including loss of some or all of their land and decrease in land value. The problem may not be found in planning rules and procedures, but the rapid pace of urban change and development in Vietnam.

 Notable portions of both SMEs and land market intermediaries (LMIs) interviewed believed that current planning regimes limited the amount of land available for business and thus drove up prices.

DONRE management

 The DONRE offices are structurally very similar, though there are differences in how they are organized into functional departments.

 There are a number of DONRE offices which have created public/private land development and consulting entities which provide technical services or assistance with land development to the public for profit, or are investing directly in land development. Whether this is a growing trend based on provisions of the LOL was not determined.

 One stop shops are everywhere. The current model is primarily an internal facility which routes work within a specific agency, and only a few specifically include in their terms of reference external interactions and resolution of issues among agencies. The OSS are performing useful functions and may tend to reduce processing time within the respective agencies, but they do not necessarily address the issues of inter-agency coordination that many respondents believe to be lacking.