Government to cut fire safety red tape: firefighter chief

Individuals and businesses will have to submit less documentation related to fire safety compliance under an amended decree, Vietnam's firefighter chief says.

Major General Nguyen Tuan Anh, head of the Department of Fire Prevention, Fighting and Rescue under the Ministry of Public Security, said this at a Thursday meeting with businesses.

He said the ministry was amending Decree 136, which provides implementation guidelines for a number of articles of the Law on Fire Prevention and Fighting. The amendments aimed to create more favorable conditions for businesses, he added.

"Once issued in August, the new decree is expected to remove current bottlenecks," Anh said.

At present, individuals and businesses have to submit appraisal and inspection certificates, as-built documents and many other papers, but under the new rules, they will not have to submit documents issued by police agencies.

In addition, all administrative procedures for fire prevention and fighting will be carried out online.

Anh also said that decentralization will be stepped up, progressively reducing the number of works inspected by his department every year.

Furthermore, verification steps for certain works will be reduced from three (location approval, basic design approval, and construction approval) to one, he added.

Nguyen Hong Hai, a representative of the Vietnam Ship Agents, Brokers and Maritime Services Providers Association, said that regulations on mandatory fire fighting equipment at seaports were unreasonable and caused huge waste of resources for businesses.

"Tier 1 ports are required to be equipped with two firefighting trucks and one firefighting vessel; while Tier 2 ports need one truck and one vessel. In fact, investment in firefighting equipment has already been included in seaport construction plans," he said.

Hai said, the equipment can cost up to hundreds of billions of Vietnamese dong (VND1 billion = $42,300), not to mention maintenance and repair costs, and specially-skilled human resources.

"We recommend that firefighting equipment be shared by functional units in the same area and fees collected when incidents occur."

In response, Anh said under the fire prevention and fighting law, special facilities like seaports, airports and power plants need specialized or semi-specialized firefighting teams. Therefore, they need to have their own firefighting means when there is an incident.

"Such equipment can't be shared because these places are at high risk of fire and explosion. We can't wait for equipment to come from other places," he explained.

In an early April dispatch, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh ordered relevant authorities to make fire safety regulations more convenient for businesses while continuing to minimize risks. He asked the ministries of public security and construction to review relevant regulations and make necessary amendments.

Provincial and city administrations should address inadequacies in state management and deal firmly with firefighting violations in construction to remove difficulties for people and businesses, the dispatch said.

Hong Sun, chairman of the Korean Chamber of Commerce (Kocham) in Vietnam, told the Vietnam Business Forum (VBF) this March that there had been complaints about new and increased investments in firefighting among businesses due to the stricter fire safety regulations. He noted difficulties related to obtaining firefighting permits in Vietnam, especially in the northern provinces of Vinh Phuc and Bac Ninh provinces.

For example, he said, in the past, it was not difficult to obtain permission even if a simple gypsum board or fire-resistant paint was used for factory firewalls, with the new regulations requiring that fire-resistant gypsum boards be used.