-
 Land
registration is one of the five major components under the Asian
Development Bank's (ADB) SME Development Project TA Program. The
main objective of this component is to look at the processes
underlying the issuance of LUR certificates, and particularly
examine how those processes prevent SMEs from not only accessing
land and relevant information more easily, but also from
accessing finance.
The establishment of Land Title Offices (LTOs) across Vietnam is
fairly new.7 Currently, in order to get a LUR
certificate issued, an SME owner needs to visit around four
governmental agencies to gather, complete and submit the
necessary forms to the Land Title Offices. After this,
processing the application requires approximately 20 internal
steps by LTO staff. In the most straightforward instance, the
entire LUR certificate process, from submission of the
application to final receipt of the certificate, takes a minimum
of 20 days. There are some reports of cases where it has taken
up to 2 years or more. In cases where land is leased or
allocated, the LUR certificate approval process becomes even
more time consuming and complex.
Our project works directly with three LTOs under the provincial
Departments of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) in Ha
Nam, Bac Ninh and Thai Binh. We help analyze the internal
processes of issuing LUR certificates and identify ways to
simplify the procedures so that it can fall within the limit of
55 days specified by the new Land Law.8 Our ultimate
target is to have LUR certificates issued within 20 days. This
pilot project is striving to meet international standards for,
and best practices in, land registration. However, looking only
at the internal processes of the LTOs is not enough. We also
help the LTOs consider their overall operational model from a
customer-service and long-term sustainability perspective. An
improvement in their internal processes may not necessarily lead
to the LTOs becoming a useful source of land information to (SME)
customers unless land data is also reliable and easily
accessible. Therefore, this project will also document priority
areas for future government consideration of the LTOs'
operations.
As mentioned above, compiling the information required by the
LUR certificate application is cumbersome and time-consuming. In
addition to improving LTOs, speeding up the establishment of
land development centers that can make more land available to
SMEs is critical. Access to land is one of the most common
constraints for SMEs; they are supposed to consult land
development centers, but these centers have not even been
established yet! The result is that the current, limited
integrated land management system prevents the LTOs from issuing
LUR certificates in a timely manner and causes frustration for
SMEs.
The factors behind SMEs' limited access to finance include the
delays associated with obtaining LUR certificates, the issue of
land pricing and the complexity of the overall institutional
framework. Some SMEs claim that because of these factors, it is
not even worth the effort to get an LUR certificate to use as
collateral towards growing their businesses.
Ms. Elaine Ma Eachern, Land/Property Registration Specialist,
ADB-TA 4418-VIE Project
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We have been collecting feedback from small and medium
enterprises on the implementation of the Land Law of 2003 and
access to land from two major sources: i) articles published in
online newspapers since the law's enactment and ii) from the two
VCCI-organized business forums that were held with the
representative from Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment.
From an analysis of different opinions and views from 203 SMEs,
the preliminary findings are as follows: land-related
administrative procedures are the biggest frustration SMEs
encounter in accessing land (cited by 49.75% of surveyed firms).
Specifically, procedures related to land allocation, land lease
and land transfer rank as the most difficult, those related to
land recovery rank second, those related to land use rights
certification rank third, and those related to conversion of
land-use purposes rank fourth. While these results demonstrate
some improvement in the process of granting LUR certificates,
they also confirm that there needs to be a greater effort
towards simplifying other land-related administrative
procedures. Inconveniences and delays can be attributed to i)
low public awareness of the Land Law of 2003; ii) an ambiguous
legal framework governing land issues, which in turn has led to
inconsistent implementation at the provincial/district level and
iii) the poor capacity of local agency staff to implement the
law. Further administrative reforms in these areas and capacity
building to officials of local governmental agencies may help.
Although these reflect very preliminary feedback from SMEs, this
doesn't mean that issues like reforms in new land area
development, land pricing and land planning are any less
important for SMEs than is accessing land for business
development.
Mr. Tran Nhu Trung,
Head of Project Consultancy Department, TECOS
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Difficulty in land registration is a common complaint made by
firms in many provinces. In particular, there is a large gap
between the views of government agencies and the actual needs of
firms. Many provinces think that they are doing well with
business land registration, but in reality firms in those
regions are unhappy with the service. For example, the owner of
a firm in the central region claimed that he wanted to register
a land lot of 3000 m2, but the provincial agency agreed to only
250m2! In addition, the issue of SMEs' access to land has not
been suitably addressed. While the good intention of serving SME
needs has led to the development of various industrial parks and
small-scale zones, in practice SMEs are unable to benefit unless
they have good connections or pay additional informal costs. The
suspension of land development plans in many provinces has also
negatively affected SMEs' business operations.
A number of efforts by the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment to boost the real estate market may help real estate
businesses, but they do not address the needs of SMEs in terms
of accessing land.
Ms. Pham Chi Lan,
Prime Minister's Research Commission
(7) LTOs are established under Decree 181 on the detailed
guidelines on the operation of the new land law and the
Inter-ministerial Circular 38, establishing the land title
offices and land budget development centers at both the
provincial and district level.
(8) The Land Law of 2003 stipulates that the certificate should
be processed and released to the customers within 55 days.
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