1. What is an investor? What types of investors are included?

Investors not a strange concept to every business person. Accordingly, investors are defined in detail at Clause 18, Article 3 of the Law on Investment 2020 as follows: Investors can be individuals or organizations. These people will carry out business investment activities.

It is necessary to clearly distinguish between investors and employers. These are two completely different concepts. Specifically, an investor is a person/organization carrying out business investment activities.

Meanwhile, employers follow Clause 4, Article 4 of the Law on Procurement 2013, is the organization that owns the capital or is assigned to represent the owner of the capital, the borrowing organization that directly manages the investment project implementation process.

Also in this regulation, investors include domestic investors and foreign investors and economic organizations with foreign investment capital.

2. What nationality is the investor determined to be?

According to the Investment Law 2020, investors are classified into 3 types: domestic investors, foreign investors and economic organizations with foreign investment capital. 

Accordingly, for each different type of investor, the determination of the investor's nationality is also regulated differently. Specifically:

- Domestic investor: Is an individual investor with Vietnamese nationality or an economic organization without foreign investors as members or shareholders.

Based on the explanation at Article 3 of the Law on Vietnamese Nationality 2008 (amended and supplemented 2014), domestic investors are individuals who can be Vietnamese citizens or Vietnamese residing abroad.

- Foreign investors: An individual with foreign nationality or an organization established under foreign law but carrying out business investment activities in Vietnam. In particular, an individual with foreign nationality is a person who has the nationality of another country and is not Vietnamese nationality.

Note: This case does not include stateless people. Because a stateless person is a person who has neither Vietnamese nor foreign nationality.

- Economic organization with foreign investment capital: This is a type of economic organization in which members are foreign investors or foreign investors are shareholders of the economic organization with investment capital. this foreign country.

Thus, based on the investor classification, the investor's nationality can be determined as an individual with Vietnamese nationality or an individual with foreign nationality...

3. If an investor has dual nationality, what legal regulations apply?

Similar to the principle of determining an individual's nationality, Vietnamese citizens can have one Vietnamese nationality or in some special cases can have additional foreign nationality, investors can also have two nationality or higher.

When an investor is a Vietnamese citizen and has foreign nationality, with business investment activities carried out in Vietnam, this investor has the right to choose to apply market access conditions and investment procedures as follows: with domestic or foreign investors.

Thus, it can be seen that investors who are Vietnamese citizens and also have foreign nationality can choose one of two forms applicable to domestic investors or foreign investors.

However, if the market access conditions and investment procedures have been selected as for domestic investors, investors who are both Vietnamese citizens and foreign nationals cannot exercise the same rights and obligations as with foreign investors.

(According to Clause 2, Article 16 of Decree 31/2021/ND-CP)