Customs-Business Partnership Program: Improving the efficiency of Law enforcement

	Customs-Business Partnership: Close cooperation
	Customs-Business partnership: Cooperate to operate more efficiently
	Enterprises will benefit from Customs reform and modernization

Operational activities at the Lao Cai Customs Branch. Photo: H. Linh.

Focusing on measures to support Customs Branches

According to Mr. Hoang Dinh Trung, the Deputy Head of the Customs Reform and Modernization Department, in recent years, the active development of Customs-Business partnership has been gradually standardized by the General Department of Vietnam Customs in line with recommendations of the World Customs Organization (WCO). 2014-2015 was an important time to develop Customs-Business partnership. Accordingly, the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued guidelines, formed the organizational structure and held internal training. In 2016, Customs conducted operations to connect and equip Customs officers with in-depth knowledge. This was also a pivotal year to implement practical activities. In 2017, the development activities of Customs-Business partnership have been regularly unified at 3 levels, no longer discrete.

"In 2017, Customs will pay much attention to the business community and people in Law enforcement towards effectiveness and transparency to meet the guidelines and requirements of the Government in the implementation of commitments to create more favourable conditions for trade and investment. In addition, the development of Customs-Business partnership also contributes to the implementation of Customs revenue tasks through assisting enterprises to carry out procedures, controlling the implementation of Customs revenues paid to the State budget", Mr. Trung said.

In order to achieve the above goals, the support of enterprises in Law enforcement has been implemented from the central level to the local level towards transparency. A new feature in 2017 is that Vietnam Customs focuses on measures to support Customs Branches. Accordingly, Customs authorities have assigned Customs Branches to build a regular partnership with businesses with specific contents as follows: Setting up a direct channel to support enterprises; regularly updating information on regulations, policies and legislation through connecting enterprises; receiving information and regularly working with businesses to interpret the situation of production and business of enterprises and the Law observance of enterprises; regularly consulting enterprises on measures to remove obstacles in the process of Law enforcement; and supporting businesses in the internal control system to increase the Law compliance of enterprises.

Strengthening supervision of Law enforcement

The supervision of Law enforcement will be strengthened in 2017. According to Mr. Trung, these supervision activities will be promoted by the General Department of Vietnam Customs to facilitate the process of Customs procedures and enhance the control of anti-commercial fraud. Thus, Customs authorities must cooperate with enterprises in the field of import-export services and relevant agencies to promote supervision. In addition, Customs Departments need to strengthen meetings with businesses. Accordingly, Customs Departments will work with representatives of businesses, social organizations and industries note comments and proposals on the implementation of Customs Law; and regularly update results of supervision of the business community.

Along with that, consultation activities; regular partnership building and publicity on development activities of Customs-Business partnership will be further strengthened by Customs to encourage the business community to actively participate.

However, Mr. Trung said that in order to achieve the maximum efficiency, there was a need for close cooperation of the business community on the contents of cooperation activities; as well as the spirit of the business community to join in partnership with Customs authorities.

One of the drawbacks in the development of the Customs-Business partnership in recent times was a low level of enterprises in consultation and cooperation with Customs authorities to amend and revise policies and the Law. Although many enterprises were interested in participating in partnership with Customs authorities, they only care about short-term problems (the problems of each shipment and separate cases) without paying much attention to the fundamental and long-term issues, such as policies and Laws. Thus, the investment of enterprises in learning, researching policies, Laws and Customs procedures is limited. The collaboration and cooperation with State authorities to strengthen security and supply chain safety as well as increasing competitiveness of domestic enterprises are quite weak.

Deploy 5 thematic programs of Customs – Business partnership in 2017 VCN - Customs will deploy 5 thematic programs of Customs - Business in 2017 in order to ...

In addition, Customs authorities have had many limitations in supporting enterprises and attracting enterprises to join in cooperation with Customs authorities. The collection of information, comments and results of consultations from enterprises is not implemented regularly, which does not create trust of the business community in Customs authorities. The cooperation activities are not accessible to large enterprises, so the cooperation and exchange of information as well as supervision of goods have not been implemented effectively.