Under the chair of Vice NA Chairman Truong Quang Duoc, deputies focused their discussions on the name and scope of adjustments to the draft law, persons subject to the draft law, enterprises allowed to export workers, and license granting procedures for these enterprises.

The draft law, which has eight chapters and 68 articles, regulates labour export activities, the rights and obligations of enterprises and organisations involved in labour exports, and guest workers themselves.

The draft law stipulates that a labour export business is not allowed to establish more than two branches.
Deputies Tran Hong Viet from Can Tho city and Tran Dac Suu from Hai Phong city argued that the stipulation is not reasonable as all conditions are clear in the legal document. They said all enterprises involved in labour exports must be responsible when their branches violate rules.

Deputy Hoang Thi Le from Cao Bang province shared the two deputies’ view, saying the limitations should be replaced with tough stipulations, such as those to heighten the responsibility of businesses towards their branches.

However, deputy Duong Kim Anh from Tra Vinh province agreed with the draft law’s stipulation. She pointed out the fact that there are too many branches and that State agencies find it hard to manage them. Many workers face physical and spiritual losses as they are the victims of branches which are not allowed to export labourers.

Deputy Tran Anh Viet from Ninh Thuan said in recent times many businesses could not control their representative branch operations, leading to messy situations and affecting the image of Vietnamese labour export enterprises. Many enterprises could not devise appropriate solutions to court cases in which Vietnamese guest workers are mistreated by foreign partners. In addition, these enterprises could not control their partners’ operations, and sometimes are put under great pressure to maintain the market.

To tighten the market management, Mr Viet suggested that the Government limit the number of branches, enhance the responsibility of ministries, sectors and localities in planning labour export businesses under their management, and increase inspection work over enterprise operations.