Vietnam will end capital punishment for eight categories of serious crime – including embezzlement, attempts to overthrow the government and sabotaging state infrastructure, state media has reported.

The state-run Vietnam News Agency reported on Wednesday that the country’s National Assembly unanimously passed an amendment to the Criminal Code that abolished the death penalty for eight criminal offences.

Starting from next month, people will no longer face a death sentence for bribery, embezzlement, producing and trading counterfeit medicines, illegally transporting narcotics, espionage, “the crime of destroying peace and causing aggressive war”, as well as sabotage and trying to topple the government.

The maximum sentence for these crimes will now be life imprisonment, the news agency said.

Those who were sentenced to death for capital offences before July 1, but have not yet been executed, will have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, the report said.

The death penalty will remain for 10 other criminal offences under Vietnamese law, including murder, treason, terrorism and the sexual abuse of children, according to the report.

During a National Assembly debate on the proposed criminal code amendment last month, the issue of dropping the death sentence for drug trafficking was the most contentious.

“Whether it’s a few grammes or a few tonnes, the harm caused by drug transport is immense,” one legislator said, while another said removing the death sentence for drugs would send the wrong signal at a time when drug cases were increasing in the country.

Capital punishment data is a state secret in Vietnam and it is not known how many people are currently on death row in the country.

Execution by firing squad in Vietnam was abolished in 2011 and replaced by the administration of a lethal injection.