Vietnam: Contents of imported publications must be appraised before its release

Specifically, according to Article 16 of Decree No. 195/2013/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, within 30 days after being granted a publication import business license, the publication importer shall issue an internal regulation on content appraisal of imported publications, send such regulation to the Ministry of Information and Communications and comply with such regulation throughout its operation. Before distributing imported publications, the head of the publication importer shall appraise their contents as follows:

- To establish an appraisal board comprising a leader of the publication importer as its chairperson, experts in the fields related to the contents of to-be-appraised publications as its members and a staff member in charge of publication content appraisal as its secretary. The invitation of experts to join the appraisal board shall be decided by the head of the publication importer;

- The appraisal shall be conducted for each imported publication. Appraisal results shall be recorded in minutes to be reported to the Ministry of Information and Communications once every 3 months;

- In the course of appraisal, if detecting that the contents of an imported publication violate Clause 1, Article 10 of the Publication Law, the publication importer may not distribute the publication and shall promptly report such to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

When receiving the Ministry of Information and Communications’ requests for content appraisal of imported publications, heads of publication importers shall organize the appraisal and report appraisal results in writing. Imported publications may be distributed only after obtaining written approval of the Ministry of Information and Communications.

View more details at Decree No. 195/2013/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, effective from March 01, 2014.

Ty Na

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