The proposal for a law on Capital City of Hanoi, presented at the 12th National Assembly (NA), was turned down on March 29 with only 35.9% of the vote.

Only a minority of deputies voted for the new law

The votes against the proposed law were 44.83%, while the rest abstained.

This is the second time the proposed law has been rejected by the country’s top legislative body.

Article 10, focusing on urban planning, received 70% of the vote, with only 15.6% of the members against it.

However, the NA Standing Committee explained that the building and approval of planning for Hanoi as well as other locations in Vietnam have already been covered under the Law on Urban Planning.

As many as 53.14% of the vote supported Article 21, which covers population management.

The idea of tighter control over immigration was controversial. Many members worried that stricter regulations on citizenship registration may spur inequality between native Hanoians and immigrants. However, the committee emphasised the need to tightly manage citizenship registration so as to ease the population density problem in the inner city, at least in the short-term.

Apart from the aforementioned articles, which were supported by a majority of NA deputies, most other articles were turned down.

For example, Article 23, which deals with financial and land management policies, was rejected, receiving only 43.81% of the vote.