18.1 Legislation
The Land Law adopted on 6 November 2003 (effective from 1 July 2004), as amended and supplemented in 2009, covers all the land matters relating the ownership, the lease, and the other relevant dealings. Under the Law, there are dozens of regulations issued by the Government and various ministries and agencies. 　

18.2 Principal Features
All lands in Vietnam are owned by people and the State, representative of the people, has the sole authority to administer it. In the central level, the National Assembly has the ultimate power to supervise and administer over the land. However, the day-to-day management is assigned to city/province-level people’s committees. Any use of land is evidenced by a certificate of land use rights and now a certificate of land use rights, ownership of residential housing and other property attached to land (collectively called Certificate of Land Use Rights). MOF, for its part, is responsible for determining the land rentals applicable to different categories of land.
Foreign investors can obtain the right to use land, either by leasing in the case of FOCs or acquiring it from the contributions by the local partners in the case of JVCs. In all, a decision from the Government and/or its relevant agency, together with a land lease agreement are compulsory for the certificate of the land use right.
The value of the leased land is generally arrived at by calculating the total value for the entire lease period, by multiplying the used area and the applicable land rental rate(s).

18.3 Land Contributions
In the context of JVCs, it is common that local parties make all or part of its contribution to the legal capital by securing the right for the JVCs to use a particular land site. As earlier said, such right will last throughout the duration of the investment license.
It is particular to verify the conditions for contribution by the land use right. The following conditions ensure a realization of the land contribution by the local parties to a JVC, which include the existence of a Certificate of Land Use Rights, the possibility of land using change so as to be suitable to the new purposes, and the permission by the authority of the local parties to do so.
As a part of the capital contribution, the payment of the land rental is destined for the local parties’ responsibility, hence not falling within the responsibilities of the JVCs or foreign parties as well.

18.4 Compensation
It is important that to acquire the land, compensation for the existing premises and crops on the land must be paid to the occupants or tenants before site clearance. Though the organization of site clearance and compensation is quitely belonging to the provincial level people's committees in case of land lease, pursuant to the Land Law, the investors or land lessors will assume all of those responsibilities. Likely, the expenses for compensation and site clearance shall be treated as a part of the investment capital of the project.
With respect to the cases where local partners contribute the value of the land use right to the projects, the responsibilities of compensation, site clearance and completion of land acquiring procedures shall belong to local partners. Expenses for compensation and site clearance shall be either treated as a part of local contribution to the projects or subject to the mutual agreements between the partners.
Unit price for compensation and site clearance shall be subject to the tariff to be issued by the relevant agencies of Vietnam.