One of the highlights of Decree no 81/2018/NĐ-CP issued on 22^th May 2018 is the regulation on removing the promotional ceiling for centralized promotions. Accordingly, Article 6 of this Decree stipulated that in case of organizing the centralized promotions (hour, day, week, month, promotion season), the maximum value of goods and service used for sales promotion can be 100%.

The centralized promotions according to this regulation include:

- Promotions presided over the organization by the state agencies (at central and province level) for a specified period of time, in the form of hour, day, week, month, promotion season with the aim to implementing targeted economic development policies of the country and locality. 

- Sales promotion campaigns on holiday, new year occasion in accordance with labor law including:

• Lunar New Year: 30 days right before the first day of lunar year;
• Other holidays. The promotion duration of each promotion on the occasion of holiday must not exceed the holiday time corresponding with the holiday in accordance with labor law.

Maximum limit of 100% of the value of goods and services used for sales promotion shall also be applied to the sales promotion activities within the framework of trade promotion activities, programs decided by the Prime Minister. 

For the promotions in form of price discount in case of centralized promotions mentioned above (hour, day, week, moth, promotion season), the maximum price discount for promoted goods or services is 100%. This maximum price discount shall be applied with the promotion activities within the framework of trade promotion activities, programs decided by the Prime Minister.

Other than the above mentioned cases, sales promotion limit and price discount limit must not exceed 50% of the price of one unit of promoted goods and services before sales promotion.

Nonetheless, there have 3 cases not applying the maximum discount limit being:

- Goods and services subject to the State’s price stabilization policy;

- Fresh food;

- Goods and services in the event of bankrupt, dissolution or change of business location or industry production, business.

Moreover, Decree no 81/2018/NĐ-CP regulated that “Money can be used as goods and services used for sales promotion” except for sales promotion cases in form of: Giving sample goods or providing sample services free of charge to customer for trial use; Sales promotion in form of price discount; Sale of goods or provision of services together with goods purchase or service use coupons. 

Starting from 15^th July 2018, when this Decree comes into effect, prohibiting organizations and individual from using alcohol in sales promotion, including those used for sales promotion and promoted goods. If the current regulation only restricted the use of alcohol or beer as gifts for under-18 persons; alcohol of an alcoholic volume of 30^o or higher, new regulation of Decree 81 enumerated alcohol into category not used for sales promotion nor promoted.

*****

Please contact us for any further concerns related to the topic of this article.

 About Us

 Asia Business Consulting is a boutique consulting firm specializing in corporate establishment, legal and business advisory, tax and payroll compliance, HR administration, market research to multinationals investing in Vietnam. For further information or to contact the firm, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or download the company brochure. You can stay up to date with the latest business and investment news in Vietnam by subscribing for our newsletters.