ASEAN Customs Transit System to be deployed soon

Vice Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee Nguyen Huu Quang made a speech at the working session.

At the meeting, the issues accepted and explained by delegates by the Ministry of Finance at the 37th Session of the Permanent Committee of the National Assembly and the opinions of the Finance-Budget Committee, as well as opinions of the Legal Committee, have been reported and explained.

In particular, on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, Deputy Director General of Vietnam Customs Mai Xuan Thanh reported and explained specifically to the Finance and Budget Committee delegation on three groups of issues: guarantee for transit goods, priority business; determining the effective time of the implementation of the decree; research on the pilot program.

In particular, on determining the point of time that the Decree takes effect, Deputy General Director Mai Xuan Thanh said that the Customs transit system under Protocol 7 and Protocol 2 would take effect for all ASEAN countries from October 6, 2019. However, according to the provisions of the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents, the Decree would take effect after 45 days, so it would not guarantee the implementation of the Decree from October 6, 2019. Regarding this issue, the Government found that

the contents of the Decree stipulating administrative procedures could not be applied retroactively according to Protocol 7 and Protocol 2 for transit shipments in Vietnam or taking effective immediately after the signing date because the subjects to which the decree applies need time to prepare necessary conditions for implementation. Besides, the required conditions for implementation included the establishment of an electronic system that had not been completed. Hence, the Ministry of Finance would report to the Government in order to inform the ASEAN Secretariat about this issue.

Regarding the pilot implementation, in Section VI of Report No. 214/TTr-CP dated May 20, 2019, the Government reported the results of the pilot implementation of the ACTS System in three countries, namely Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. Accordingly, after completing the two stages of the pilot implementation, the above three countries (phase A - Deploying to run pilot program according to the scenarios on the System and phase B - Operating in parallel for trucks, which means deploying both pilot declaration on the ACTS system, and declaration according to the current procedures of the countries) would expect to continue deploying phase C - Deploying in the real situation in December, 2019. However, at the 21st meeting of ACTS System in Thailand which took place on June 25-27, 2019, based on the consultation of the ARISE Plus project experts with the agreement of ASEAN member countries, the above countries agreed to carry out the pilot program from the beginning, together with three countries (Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia). Accordingly, the time for running the pilot program would start from January, 2020. Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh said that in order to prepare for this pilot implementation, the ARISE Plus project expert has assisted the countries to organize training courses for customs officials, officials of Ministry of Transport and the business community and connect the system. Thus, Vietnam and the countries in the east-west corridor (Laos, Cambodia) would still deploy the pilot program of the system before officially deploying in the real situation (phase C). It was only different from the original plan proposed by the ARISE Plus project expert without the involvement of Myanmar.

Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh also reported to the delegation of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National Assembly about the customs authorities' readiness in implementing the ACTS System.

At the meeting, the Vice Chairman of Finance and Budget Committee Nguyen Huu Quang said that the development of legal documents for implementing customs procedures, inspection and supervision of goods that are transited through the ASEAN Customs Transit System demonstrated Vietnam's commitment to participating in the approval of Protocol 7 on the ASEAN Customs Transit System, with the aim of further facilitating the transport of transit goods, Based on the contents of the General Department of Vietnam Customs reported at the meeting, Mr. Quang suggested that the units would review again, to ensure the decree would be accelerated to implement the pilot phase after taking effect.