Under the Enterprise Law 2020, each company in Vietnam has an unique enterprise code (mã số doanh nghiệp) which distinguishes such company from another company. If one has the enterprise code of a company, it can easily obtain information about its latest names and addresses from the National Enterprise Information Portal. Accordingly, the goods labelling regulations should require the enterprise code of entity responsible for goods circulated in Vietnamese market (generally, “responsible entity”) to be a compulsory content of a goods label.

However, currently the goods labelling regulations do not require the enterprise code of the responsible entity to be included in the label of goods circulated in Vietnam. Instead, under Decree 43/2017 on goods labelling, the labels of goods circulated in Vietnamese market must contain the name and addresses of the responsible entity. This requirement could cause significant inconvenience for the responsible entity especially those in FMCG sector, when it changes its name or address.

This is because failure to declare correctly information required by laws in the goods label could result in (1) a fine of up to VND 60 million and potentially (2) a recall of the goods containing incorrect information for re-labelling. For responsible entities, which have million of goods circulated in the market, a recall and re-labelling of their products is practically impossible. In practice, these responsible entities have to manage the timing for change of name and address to ensure that it has the minimum number amount of remaining labels and, if possible, inventory before amended the Enterprise Registration Certificate to reflect the new name or address. In addition, the relevant manufacturer or importer may need to structure the responsible entity whose name and address is unlikely to be changed in the future.

This post is written by Nguyen Quang Vu with research assistance by Nguyen Hoang Duong.