Ad market: imperial power bends to suit rural customs The Advertisement Law, which was considered a major reform in the industry, has turned out to cause many difficulties for ad firms. Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong, director of Kim Minh Ad Firm in HCM City, said her company had had problems since the law went into effect on January 1, 2013. The HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism asked Kim Minh to show a building permit for billboards which Kim Minh set up before the ad law took effect. However, the city’s Construction Department refused to grant building permit for the billboards, saying that the billboards were installed before the ad law took effect. However, the ad law not only conflicts with the construction law, but also with the transport law and the land law. “In another case, though we obtained the building permit from the Construction Department, we still could not get the ad license because the transport department said the billboard installation did not accord with the standards set up by the transport department,” Phuong said. As a result, Kim Minh now cannot use the two billboards on Hanoi Highway. Meanwhile, according to Phuong, it takes at least VND500 million to install a billboard. “The more the policy makers try to amend laws, the bigger difficulties they put for enterprises,” she commented. Nguyen Xuan Hung, director of Sai Gon Viet Ad Firm, noted that businesses still meet many troubles when following administrative procedures. Under the current laws, the ad license granted by the HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism is valid for six months. “The contracts signed between ad firms and customers are valid for one year at least. Therefore, we have to have the licenses renewed every six months, which is really a big waste of time and money,” Hung complained. Ninh Thi Thu Huong, a senior official of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said she does not think the problem is in the advertising law. “The policymakers tried to create an open legal framework to develop the ad industry, removing a lot of unnecessary administrative procedures,” Huong said. “However, the spirit of the open ad law was not understood by local management agencies.” “It is really absurd when the HCM City culture department asks ad firms to renew ad license every six months,” he added. “This is not stipulated in the ad law.” Huong said that local watchdog agencies make mistakes when implementing the ad law, setting up regulations which are contrary to the ad law’s spirit. Tran Hung, deputy chair of the Vietnam Advertisement Association, said while the ad law “laid the red carpet” for enterprises, regulations set up by local authorities “laid sharp nails” for them. DNSG