6 conditions to be approved as bonded warehouses

Illustrative photo

In detail, places that wish to be recognised as bonded warehouses need to be in particular areas as prescribed in paragraph 1 of Article 62 of the Customs Law; areas need to be approved by competent authorities that are in development planning for logistics across the country, investment incentive areas; and areas that specialize in concentrated importing in agriculture, forestry and aquaculture productions.

Bonded warehouses must be separated from the surrounding area by a system of fencing barriers, which meet the regularly test and check requirements of Customs offices, expect for warehouses at border gates and harbour areas that have been isolated by fencing walls from the surrounding area. This is to ensure that the working conditions for Customs offices are like work places, places for inspecting commodities, installation equipment for customs inspection places, and a warehouse for evidence of violation material under the provisions of the Ministry of Finance.

A bonded warehouse must have a minimum area of 5,000 m2 (including the storehouse, yards and ancillary works), the storehouse area must be at least 1.000 m2 or more. For specialized bonded warehouses that are used to store one or more types of goods, which must have special storage requirements, they must have a minimum area of 1,000 m2 or minimum storage volume of 1,000 m3. A bonded warehouse in the port area must have minimum area of 1,000 m2.

Specialized bonded warehouse yards have to be at least 10.000 m2, no requirement for a storage area. They must have software that meets the following criteria: Management of goods import, export, storage, record of what exists in bonded warehouses for each item, subject of purchase, customs declaration; and must have backup and data output to serve reports, statistics, storage and have a direct line connected to the managing Customs agency.

A camera system must satisfy the following criteria: Observable to every position in the bonded warehouse and images must be captured at all times during the day (24/7); the data of the camera image must be stored for at least 12 months; the system must be directly connected to Customs management agency. The Director General of the General Department of Customs will issue the standard for exchange of data between Customs offices and business enterprise bonded warehouses on the management software of goods brought in and out and the camera surveillance system.

Bonded warehouses will be de-activated when: a business has not maintained the warehouse to the prescribed conditions or terminates the operation of the old warehouse in case of transfer of ownership of the bonded warehouses, enterprises that have made a written proposal to the General Department of Customs to terminate the operation of bonded warehouses; Over a period of 6 months from the time of the recognition decision of a bonded warehouse, but no there has been no business activity in the bonded warehouse; business activities have been suspended with no written notification to operate again; within a period of 12 months the enterprise has committed 3 administrative violations on customs related to the operation of bonded warehouses and been fined for each time exceeding the sanctioning competence of the Manager of the Customs Branch.

So, the conditions to establish a bonded warehouse according to the Decree No.68/2016/ND-CP of the Government have a number of new features in comparison with the previous decree. Namely, more conditions about the area for some cold bonded warehouses storing specific goods, and bonded warehouses that are in the harbour area.