New policies take effect in December Regulations on Vietnamese nationality retention, administrative violation sanctions in monetary and banking area, land price framework are among the fresh policies that take effect in December.  Facilitating retention of Vietnamese nationality The Government issued Decree 97/2014/ND-CP to amend and supplement some articles of the Decree 78/2009/ND-CP dated on September 22, 2009 on detailed implementation of the Law on Vietnamese Nationality. Under the new Decree, the Government has removed the deadline to register for retention of the Vietnamese nationality. Overseas Vietnamese, who have not yet lost their Vietnamese nationality as prescribed by the country’s law before July 1, 2009, without any proofs of Vietnamese nationality shall make registration with an overseas Vietnamese representative agency to identify their Vietnamese nationality and to be issued Vietnamese passports following prescribed procedures in order to retain their Vietnamese nationality. Overseas Vietnamese diplomatic missions, consular offices, and agencies authorized to handle the requests for nationality registration and passports. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice are in charge of posting the list of overseas Vietnamese missions on their websites. The Decree shall take effect since December 1, 2014. Land price framework The Government issued Decree No. 104/2014/ND-CP to guide the Article 13 of the Land Law. Accordingly, land price framework is used as basis for the provinces and centrally-runned cities to build land price list. The land price framework consists of two groups, namely agricultural land and non-agricultural land. The maximum price of land in urban areas is VND 162 million per square meter, applicable to special urban areas in the Red River Delta and the Southeast region. The Decree will take effect on December 29. Administrative sanctions in monetary and banking domain Since December 12, administrative infringements on monetary area and banking activity shall be fined up to billions Viet Nam Dong.   This is part of Decree 96/2014/ND-CP of the Government on sanctions against administrative violations in the monetary and banking domain.   The new decree, which replaces Decree 202/2004/ND-CP, dated December 10, 2004 and Decree 95/2011/ND-CP, dated December 20, 2011, expands scope of violations, especially acts related to money laundering and deposit insurance. A fine of up to VND 500 million shall be imposed on acts of separating, merging, transforming legal status by credit organizations and branches of foreign banks without getting written approval from competent agencies. Foreign currency activities of credit organizations, branches of foreign banks, agents without licenses issued by competent agencies or their licenses expired/suspended shall be subjected to a fine of VND 500-600 million. The infringement of capital adequacy ratio shall be fined from VND 400-450 million. The fresh decree also stipulates fines of VND 150 million on deposit insurance and VND 250 million on money laundering. The above sanctions shall be applied to individuals and doubled for violations by organizations. Penalties for administrative violations in technology transfer The Government issued a new Decree to amend and supplement the Decree 64/2013/ND-CP dated on June 27, 2013 on penalties for administrative violations against the Law on Scientific Activities and Technology Transfer. Under the new Decree the fine for violating regulations on applying and disseminating the outcomes of scientific and technological activities will be increased to VND 30 million from the current VND 20 million. The new Decree will take effect in December 15. VGP