Today, the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Trade and Investment Promotion, in collaboration with the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, hosted a dialogue between enterprises and city authorities to address challenges and concerns facing medical businesses in the area.
At the conference, Pharmacist Nguyen Thanh Hien, Deputy Head of the Legal Inspection Division of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, reported that in the first half of 2025, the department inspected 74 pharmaceutical establishments, including 46 organizations and 28 individuals. Of these, 59 establishments were found to be in violation, resulting in cumulative fines of VND1.5 billion. The high detection rate is attributed to the department's proactive approach of gathering intelligence on potential violations before conducting inspections.
The primary violations included:
- Trading drugs without proper invoices or documentation
- Dispensing prescription drugs without a prescription
- Selling drugs outside the scope of the business eligibility certificate
- Engaging in transactions with establishments that lacks a pharmaceutical business eligibility certificate
- Operating retail establishments without the presence of a university-qualified pharmacist
During the inspections, the health sector discovered that some intentionally avoided purchasing goods with invoices to evade taxes, which led to violations of pharmaceutical business regulations. Pharmacist Nguyen Thanh Hien stresses that it is unacceptable for customers to buy drugs as casually as they would buy vegetables, or for businesses to purchase drugs simply because they are cheap.
Concerning the cosmetics industry, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health conducted an inspection and found that 35 out of 46 organizations were in violation, resulting in fines exceeding VND2.6 billion. The infractions included formulas that did not comply with the cosmetic declaration dossier; failure to meet quality standards and lacking a certificate of eligibility for cosmetic production; distributing cosmetics without obtaining a cosmetic declaration receipt number from an authorized state agency; and advertising cosmetics in a manner that misleads consumers into believing they are drugs.
Furthermore, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health identified 29 medical equipment businesses that were in violation and imposed fines totaling more than VND1 billion. The primary violations included manufacturing without completing the necessary procedures for declaring production eligibility; misclassifying equipment contrary to the established classification rules based on risk levels; plus, violating facilities failed to declare the prices of medical equipment prior to their circulation.
