Cutting procedures, reducing time for businesses
Implementing the direction of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long and leaders of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Health has coordinated with many relevant ministries and sectors to submit to the Government for promulgation Resolution No. 66.13/2026/NQ-CP and Decree No. 46/2026/ND-CP, both effective from January 26, 2026.
According to the Ministry of Health, the new documents concretize the spirit of reform of Resolution 66/NQ-CP on cutting and simplifying administrative procedures for the period 2025–2026. In the field of food advertising alone, 2 administrative procedures have been cut, accounting for more than 10% of the total number of procedures, and at the same time, the processing time has been shortened by 20%.
Regarding the designation of food testing facilities to serve state management, the number of administrative procedures has been reduced by 60%, simplified by 40%, and processing time reduced by more than 33%.
Strong decentralization to localities, increasing management efficiency
Currently, the field of food safety has 39 administrative procedures under the management authority of three sectors: Health, Agriculture and Environment, and Industry and Trade. Implementing the Government's decentralization decrees, 31/39 procedures have been decentralized and delegated to localities, equivalent to nearly 80%.
In which, continuing to decentralize three state inspection procedures on imported food safety according to reduced, common and strict inspection methods. Decentralization is expected to help localities be more proactive, reduce congestion and increase control efficiency.
Tightening from the root: production must be responsible
A noteworthy point of the Resolution and new Decree is to overcome the "loopholes" that were once exploited in Decree 15/2018/ND-CP, leading to many serious cases of fake food, fake milk, and false advertising.
Accordingly, establishments producing medical nutritional foods, foods for special diets, supplements, and nutritional products for children under 36 months old are required to apply international quality management systems such as HACCP, ISO 22000, GMP, FSSC 22000 or equivalent.
In particular, the manufacturing facility must be named to announce the product, taking full responsibility for the quality, safety and legality of the product. This regulation aims to prevent the situation where businesses "hit the jackpot", announce a batch of goods and then leave responsibility blank but still advertise and inflate the uses.
Increase pre-inspection for high-risk product groups
In the stage before the product goes into circulation, the new regulation strengthens the management of announcement of applied standards and registration of product announcements.
Groups of health protection foods, medical nutritional foods, foods for special diets, supplements and nutritional products for children under 36 months old are required to register a product declaration. Registration dossiers are tightened, supplementing requirements on ingredients, production processes, packaging materials, product uses, and learning management experience from many developed countries.
For imported food, remove the regulation on exemption from inspection for products that have received registration certificates for declarations; and at the same time amend inspection methods in the direction of increasing the rate of dossier inspection, sampling and testing, especially for high-risk product groups.
Strict post-inspection, control advertising in the digital environment
For the first time, the concept and content of post-inspection are clearly stipulated in the Decree, based on reference to the management model of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Accordingly, ministries, branches and localities must annually develop periodic inspection plans, and at the same time conduct surprise inspections when there are signs of violations. Testing facilities serving state management are strengthened in their proactive role in taking samples to monitor the market.
Notably, the new regulations tighten the management of food advertising on e-commerce platforms and social networks. Sellers, advertisers, celebrities, and influential people must publicize product legal documents and sponsorship relationships. E-commerce platform owners must be jointly responsible if they loosen censorship, allowing violations to occur causing damage to consumers.
