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Vietnam has kept distribution services, including retail business, open to foreign investors for years without any restriction. The only exception to this has been certain kinds of goods, such as rice, oil, medicines and cigarettes, which are monopolised by domestic enterprises, and the need for an application for the Economic Need Test (ENT) required for the opening of each individual retail shop by foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs).

On March 7 2017, the Brazilian federal government released the second phase of the Investment Partnership Programme (Programa de Parceria de Investimentos or PPI) – a governmental programme designed to foster infrastructure by expanding and strengthening the relationship between the government and the private sector.

With effect from February 1 2017, new legislation introduced the Public Partners Register (PPR) to replace the existing Beneficial Owners Register.

Another round of consolidation in the Iberian financial sector is expected in 2017. And, if only in terms of the semi-announced and widely discounted merger between Bankia and Banco Mare Nostrum (BMN), this new round does indeed seem likely. More broadly, the present map of institutions, with roughly 15 substantial financial groups (though with remarkable differences in size) is commonly acknowledged as an intermediate stage in the route towards a landscape that will be dominated probably by fewer than 10 groups.

Peter Hsu and Daniel Flühmann of Bär & Karrer survey new Swiss Federal Council proposals to amend rules to facilitate fintech, and look at some of the pros and cons of the current system

Amendments to the Payment Services Act and several related laws concerning virtual currencies are expected to come into effect after April 2017. In response to the amendments, the Financial Service Agency of Japan announced the draft of the Cabinet Office Ordinance concerning virtual currency exchange service providers on December 28 2016. The Ordinance sets forth the details of the rules for virtual currency exchange service providers (VCESP).

In August 2016, the Guatemalan Congress approved decree 37-2016 (Ley para el Fortalecimiento de la Transparencia Fiscal y la Gobernanza de la Superintendencia de Administración Tributaria). Through this decree, Congress seeks to reform the organisational structure of the Superintendency of Tax Administration (SAT). This reform will include incorporating mechanisms that contribute to the achievement of SAT's objectives, and in particular, providing the financial resources necessary for the State to comply with its constitutional obligations.

Earlier this year, Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources issued a regulation to regulate the pricing of gas fed into the country's electric generators. PLN, the state's electricity company, is the largest operator of these generators, although the regulation also applies to other electricity producers supplying electricity to PLN.

Advance approval from the Philippine Insurance Commission (IC) is now required to acquire a stake in a Philippine corporation that is licenced as an insurance broker or reinsurance broker. This is based on the IC's circular letter number 2017-09 dated February 14 2017 which prescribes guidelines on the documentation requirements for acquiring a domestic insurance or reinsurance broker.

The revision of law 5/2011, which approved the smoking prevention and control bill, is still pending and, though a full smoking ban in casinos was the initial plan of the Macau government, it may not actually happen after all.