Vietnamese start-ups have to register business overseas Young Vietnamese entrepreneurs have to register their businesses in foreign countries, as they operate in an unclear domestic business environment.    The State needs to consider startups an important part of the national economy  When launching Babyme, a technology app for children’s health, Trinh Tuan met many difficulties. Foreign investors refused to pour capital into Tuan’s project because of limitations in the Investment Law. Tuan decided to file a business registration and set up company in Singapore. “This is a kind of brain drain in the startup community,” the Babyme founder said. He went on to say that if government agencies cannot realize the problem and fix it, the brain drain will be more serious in the near future, and Vietnamese businessmen will pay taxes to foreign countries. Nguyen Ngoc Diep, CEO of Vatgia.com, complained that he has many problems running an information website. The website has to pay VND20-30 million in fines nearly every month because of ‘unreasonable content’. Unable to maintain the operation of the website, Diep gave back the domain name to the State, sold the database and transferred the server to Singapore. “The website now operates very well, bringing hundreds of millions of dong a month,” he said. After many years of supporting startups, Nguyen Hong Hai from Becamex said he understands the problems startups have to face, from administrative procedures, to equity to capital mobilization. He still cannot fulfill the procedures for an investment project in agriculture which he began three months ago. Dinh Hung, one of the best known businessmen in the startup community, noted that Vietnamese people have the right to dream of products and services better than Uber or Grab Taxi created by Vietnamese. However, in order to do this, the State needs to consider startups an important part of the national economy. The startup community does not intend to rely on the government and expect investment incentives. It expects the government to create a startup ecosystem now, based on policies which create a reasonable business environment for startups to operate. Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong admitted that many startups complained about difficulties in registering their business. Dong said some business registration agencies usually have questions about enterprises’ asset valuation and want to reevaluate the assets again. Meanwhile, in principle, the agencies do not have the right to question the asset valuation, because this is an agreement between investors and startups. Dong said that it was difficult for startups to receive capital from foreign investors, and the ministry would create a legal document to fix the problem. VNE