Hanoi (VNA) - Minister of Information andCommunications Nguyen Manh Hung on October 25 presented the draft revised theLaw on Electronic Transactions to the 15th National Assembly (NA) atits ongoing fourth session.

The draft, comprising of eight chapters and 58 articles, has been drawn up inline with the nine policies specified in the governmental Resolution 152.

It expands the scope of the law to includee-signatures, e-certificates, and the conversion between paper-baseddocumentation and data messages; as well as legally recognises electronictransactions and adds new cybersecurity and data security regulations to the law.

"The introduction of e-certificates will act as a catalyst for thewidespread use of electronic transactions in all sectors across theboard", he said.

In response to the draft, Chairman of NA's Science, Technology and EnvironmentCommittee Le Quang Huy said his committee concurred largely with thedraft.

He said the draft works consistently with free trade agreements to which Vietnamis a member. However, it does not fully cover the notion of 'datamessage' specified by the United Nations Commission on International TradeLaw in 1996.  

For that reason, he called for a revision to the draft to ensure itscompatibility with international agreements.

He also agreed with expanding the legal scope but was concerned that thedraft's scope might not be exhaustive. He called for revising Article 2 toensure no potential subjects would fall out of the scope.

Regarding Articles 10 and 11, he asked for further clarification onthe definition of 'electronic document' and the validity of data messagesto ensure the articles accord with the Law on Notarisation.

He underscored Article 14, which requires an identity between paper-baseddocumentation and their correspondent data messages, as a legalburden on commercial banks because the banks, in most cases, are not issuersneither holders of the documentation.

Article 14 also stipulates that data messages must be signed with e-signaturesif their correspondent paper-based documentation has been signed manually.

Huy believed such a stipulation would be impractical as it was not easy forbanks to request additional e-signatures from their clients once they hadsigned their documentation manually.

Under Article 14, the conversion between paper-based documentation and datamessages requires the signatures and seals of the converting organisations tobe considered valid. The chairman said such a requirement was unnecessaryand would add time to the process.

The conversion from data messages into paper-based documentationis restricted to bank clients rather than banks themselves. He called forbanks to be eligible for the conversion similarly to their clients./.