Linh, who is also Vice Chairman of the NA Office, said during 26 days of work the parliament approved the Law on Belief and Religion, the Law on Auctions and the law on amendments and supplements to Article 6 and Appendix 4 on the list of conditional business lines in the Investment Law, along with eleven resolutions.
As opinions on the draft Law on Associations and the draft law revising and supplementing some articles of the 2015 Penal Code remained different, the NA agreed to delay the approval of those bills.
It tasked the NA Standing Committee with directing drafting boards to work with verification agencies to continue amending the drafts so that they can be considered at the NA’s third session, slated for May 2017.
He noted that at the second session, deputies also commented on fourteen other draft laws, such as those on railways, irrigation, tourism, the management and use of State assets, foreign trade management and technology transfers. Many voters urged for these bills to be promulgated or revised to address existing flaws.
Giving more details on the decision to halt the Ninh Thuan nuclear power plant project, NA Secretary General Nguyen Hanh Phuc said the thirteenth NA approved a resolution on investing in the project at its sixth session in November 2009. Several relevant tasks have been carried out, such as site clearance, resident resettlement and facility construction.
However, the domestic and international situation has changed since then, while Vietnam’s scientific and technological level remains inappropriate for developing nuclear power.
Additionally, the project’s economic benefits cannot be ensured anymore as the production cost of nuclear power is now higher than that of other energy sources. Oil prices were at about US$100 each barrel in 2009 but have dropped to approximately US$50 at present.
More than 95% of the NA deputies approved the Government’s proposal to cancel the project, he noted.
At its second session, the parliament received more than 2,400 opinions and petitions sent by people nationwide while deputies also raised about 100 questions for the Prime Minister and four ministers during the course of two-and-a-half days of question-and-answer sessions.
The problems raised at the hearings were of public concern, Phuc said, adding that the NA tasked its agencies with supervising the handling of those issues.
