Businesses have to stop production because of Circular 08 and 09 of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

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The provisions of Circular 08 and Circular 09 issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment are delaying the clearance of goods for enterprises. Photo of Ngoc Linh.

Businesses lost trillions of Dong

Circular 08/2018 / TT-BTNMT and Circular 09/2018 / TT-BTNMT issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment promulgating national technical standards on environment for 6 groups of imported scrap as production materials, including: Iron and steel; plastic; paper; glass; non-ferrous metal and blast furnace slag, officially takes effect. In particular, in these two circulars, the state inspection agency for imported scrap quality is the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) for where there are factories and production facilities using imported scrap as production materials.

With the above provisions, in the areas where there are no seaports, officials of DONRE must move to seaports to check the goods of enterprises. For example, an enterprise in Lao Cai province imports scraps materials to Hai Phong port, officials of Lao Cai DONRE must move to this port to check the state of imported scrap quality. With a process like this, the clearance time for a business is long and not suitable to the actual conditions.

Previously, the time for cargo clearance at Hai Phong Port of Thuy Anh Company only took 5 days, but now the company's clearance time is 10-15 days. Mr. Vu Xuan Tien, Deputy Director of Thuy Anh Company (Hai Phong) said that the reason for the prolonged length of time is because there are not enough DONRE’s officers at Hai Phong to check all the enterprises’ containers quickly.

Also according to Mr. Tien, the provisions of Circular 08 and Circular 09 generate more administrative procedures for enterprises; prolong the clearance time for goods, thus increasing the cost of storing containers at ports. This has affected the production activities of enterprises.

According to the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association, the implementation of regulations on state inspection of imported scrap is currently affecting the production activities of enterprises. Accordingly, the length of time for carrying out procedures of enterprises creates expenses for storage in the port, causing great pressure on storage capacity of enterprises. At the same time, the production plan of the affected enterprises, especially enterprises that do not deliver on time as agreed to the partners, so they are fined, workers are worried.

According to the data of the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association, only for the paper industry, storage fees have reached VND billion, equivalent to about VND 800,000-1,000,000 / ton of imported materials. Accordingly, production costs increased by nearly 10% of the cost, making domestic products uncompetitive with imported products from regional countries ...

Also according to the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association, with the situation of not being able to clear goods, there are now enterprises that had to stop production like Chanh Duong Paper Mill Co, Ltd., and in a few days, a series of importing paper factories will be closed because there is no material to produce. This has led to a very serious corollary for businesses and workers in the industry.

Urgently remove problems

For the problems encountered with the state inspection regulations on the quality of imported scrap, on January 15, the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association had some comments for the Prime Minister:

According to the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association, the local Departments of Natural Resources and Environment participate in conducting state inspection of the quality for imported scrap as inappropriate production materials. Circular 08/2018 / TT-BTNMT and Official Letter No. 5943 / BTNMT-TCMT need to be amended to suit the current situation.

The Vietnam Paper and Pulp Association recommends that the Customs Department still carry out the previous inspection, while the DONREs will carry out post-clearance inspection at the enterprise's factory.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment conducts unscheduled and irregular inspections at the enterprises on goods’ quality, and production and recycling must ensure the legal provisions on environmental protection with wastewater, exhaust gas, solid waste ... If contravening environmental standards, the violating enterprise will be sanctioned, including measures to revoke certificates ...

At the same time, building national standards for classifying and collecting paper for production materials, proceeding to consider imported recovered paper as production materials to be cleared as normal goods, to quit deposit of importing scrap, conducting post-inspection at enterprises ... as most countries in the world are currently implementing. In addition, there is an appropriate policy to promote and encourage the collection of recovered paper in the country for production.