The extraordinary session of the National Assembly is scheduled to open on January 15, 2024.

Secretary General of the National Assembly Bui Van Cuong said that at the recent 6th Session, the National Assembly "decided to adjust the time to submit to the National Assembly for consideration and approval of the draft Law on Land (amended) and the draft Law on Credit Institutions (amended) to the nearest session" and "Assigned the Government to urgently develop a draft Resolution on a number of specific mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties and obstacles, speed up the implementation of National Target Programs to submit to the National Assembly for consideration and decision at the nearest session according to shortened procedures...".

Based on the above provisions, the Secretary General of the National Assembly has sent a document requesting the Standing Committee of the Nationalities Council, the Standing Committees of the National Assembly, and the Committees under the National Assembly Standing Committee to give their opinions and proposals on the specific time to submit to the National Assembly for consideration and decision on the above contents (at the 5th Extraordinary Session or the 7th Session of the 15th National Assembly).

Up to now, the Secretary General of the National Assembly has received opinions from the Standing Committee of the Ethnic Council, the Standing Committee of the 9 Committees and the People's Petition Committee, in which the Standing Committee of the Committee on Culture and Education agreed to organize the 5th Extraordinary Session to consider and approve the draft Law on Land (amended), the draft Law on Credit Institutions (amended) and the draft Resolution on a number of specific mechanisms and policies to implement the National Target Programs according to the prescribed procedures.

The Standing Committee of the Law Committee proposed: The extraordinary session of the National Assembly often takes place in a very short period of time to consider and decide on important and urgent contents to immediately meet the requirements of practical life. Therefore, the contents expected to be submitted to the National Assembly at the extraordinary session must meet the criteria of urgency, must be prepared very carefully and achieve high consensus and unity among agencies, minimizing the submission of contents to the extraordinary session with many issues that still have different opinions; at the same time, it is also necessary to calculate to ensure the time of organization, reasonable time fund during the session for agencies to research, receive and explain the opinions of National Assembly deputies, complete documents to submit to the National Assembly for approval in accordance with the prescribed process and procedures, especially large projects and drafts with complex contents; National Assembly deputies also need time to research and prepare opinions.

Based on the conclusions of the National Assembly Standing Committee and the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the Standing Committee of the Economic Committee has sent a document to the Government requesting a proposal to complete the draft Law on Credit Institutions (amended). Based on the Government's proposal, the Standing Committee of the Economic Committee will closely coordinate with the Standing Committee of the Law Committee and the drafting agency to continue reviewing, revising and completing the draft Law; it is expected to report to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly at the January 2024 session to consider whether it is eligible to be submitted to the National Assembly for approval or not.

Implementing the conclusions of the National Assembly Standing Committee at the Interim Session of the 6th Session on a number of major issues of reception, explanation, revision and plan for approval of the draft Land Law (amended), immediately after the Session, the Standing Committee of the Economic Committee chaired and closely coordinated with the Standing Committee of the Law Committee, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Ministry of Justice and relevant agencies to continue reviewing and perfecting the contents of the draft Law. Accordingly, the focus was on perfecting the major contents of the draft Law according to the Conclusion Notice No. 3123/TB-TTKQH dated November 21, 2023; at the same time, a comprehensive review of the first draft Law was conducted. The review results showed that, in addition to the major contents that require the Government's opinion as reported to the National Assembly Standing Committee and the National Assembly, there are a number of other contents that require the Government's opinion for clarification; Some contents that the drafting agency and the ministries continue to comment on, but there are changes or need clarification of policies, must have official opinions from the Government.

It is expected that after completing the second review of the draft Law (in December 2023), the Standing Committee of the Economic Committee will report to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to send a document to the Government requesting official comments on the draft Law and the content of receiving and explaining the opinions of National Assembly deputies. After receiving the official comments from the Government, the agencies will complete the draft Law to report to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly at the January 2024 session and report and request comments from the Politburo. After completing the content of the draft Law, the Economic Committee will transfer the draft to the Law Committee for technical review.

This is a very important Law project, with a large scope of impact and many related provisions. Although the agencies have continuously worked, made efforts to absorb, revise and perfect the draft Law, the review of the entire draft Law has not yet been completed. In fact, the review is very time-consuming and has created additional contents that need to be clarified and perfected to ensure that there are no problems during the implementation process in practice. From now until the end of December, there is not much time left, while the workload is still very large, so submitting it to the National Assembly for consideration and approval in January 2024 has many potential risks, making it difficult to ensure the best quality of the draft Law. Therefore, the Standing Committee of the Economic Committee proposes to study and submit it to the National Assembly for consideration and approval at the 7th Session (May 2024).

The Standing Committee of the Social Affairs Committee and the Standing Committee of the Finance and Budget Committee also proposed to consider passing the draft Law on Land (amended) and the Law on Credit Institutions (amended) at the 5th Extraordinary Session because these are draft Laws with large and complex contents, having direct and profound impacts on the economy, the legitimate rights and interests of the people, while the duration of the extraordinary session is short, the time from now until the Extraordinary Session is not much, so the time for the National Assembly and Government agencies to coordinate to receive, explain, revise, and complete the draft Law for submission to the National Assembly for approval is not much, this partly affects the quality of the draft Law. Therefore, it is proposed to only submit these draft Laws for approval when the quality is at the most optimal level. Therefore, the Standing Committee of the Finance and Budget Committee proposed to submit these two draft Laws to the National Assembly for approval at the 7th Session (May 2024).

The Secretary General of the National Assembly proposed that, based on the review of the quality of preparation, if the documents are qualified and ensure progress and quality, the following contents should be submitted to the National Assembly at the 5th Extraordinary Session: Consider and approve the draft Law on Land (amended) and the draft Law on Credit Institutions (amended) if qualified; Consider and approve the Draft Resolution on a number of specific mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties and obstacles, speed up the implementation of National Target Programs; Consider and approve the Resolution on supplementing the Medium-term Public Investment Plan of the central budget for the period 2021 - 2025 from the general reserve source corresponding to the source of increased revenue and savings of the central budget in 2022 for public investment tasks and projects and supplementing the Medium-term Public Investment Plan for Vietnam Electricity Group from the reserve source of the Medium-term Public Investment Plan (if any).

Regarding the meeting format, the National Assembly will convene at the National Assembly House. The National Assembly is expected to meet for 3 days, opening on Monday, January 15, 2024 and divided into 2 sessions (the National Assembly will take 2 working days off between the 2 sessions so that agencies have time to absorb, revise, and complete draft laws and resolutions before submitting them to the National Assembly for approval):

The first session will last for 2.5 days (from January 15 to the morning of January 17, 2024) to open the Session, listen to the presentation of the Proposal, Report, discuss draft laws and resolutions, specifically, arrange 0.5 days for discussion in the hall for the draft Law on Credit Institutions (amended); 0.5 days for discussion in the hall for the draft Law on Land (amended); Arrange 0.5 days for discussion in the Group for the remaining 2 draft Resolutions and 0.5 days for discussion in the hall/draft Resolution.

The second session will meet for 0.5 days (Friday afternoon, January 19, 2024) to pass laws, resolutions and close the session.

At the end of the session, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue said that based on the opinions of the National Assembly agencies, if an extraordinary session is held, the above contents will be considered. The National Assembly Chairman noted that the 2-day break between the two sessions should be reconsidered as to whether it is too long or not.

The National Assembly Chairman requested that agencies and committees of the National Assembly need to be determined to implement the two drafts of the revised Land Law and the revised Law on Credit Institutions so that extraordinary sessions can be held.

Minister and Head of the Government Office Tran Van Son said the Government is determined to complete and submit the above two draft laws to the extraordinary session of the National Assembly.

Regarding the preparation for the 7th session, Secretary General of the National Assembly Bui Van Cuong said that the National Assembly is expected to open on May 20, 2024 and will be divided into two sessions. Session 1 is expected to last 14 days (from May 20 to June 6, 2024) and will mainly be arranged to discuss the contents submitted to the National Assembly for voting and approval at the session and discuss in groups a number of draft laws submitted to the National Assembly for comments; question and answer questions. Session 2 is expected to last 8 days, from June 17 to June 26, 2024; mainly to arrange for the National Assembly to vote and approve laws and discuss in groups a number of draft laws and discuss in the hall a number of draft laws submitted to the National Assembly for comments; discuss the results of supervising the settlement and response to voters' petitions. Thus, the National Assembly is expected to work for 22 days and is expected to close on June 26, 2024.