Customs: Comprehensive reform by institutional improvement

	Customs always enhances modern management method
	Customs leads the administrative procedures group with low compliance costs
	Only 15% of administrative reforms completed

The Customs sector continues to improve the legal system. Photo: H.N

Talking with the South Korean business community at the dialogue conference on Customs and Tax policies and procedures with South Korean enterprise 2018, Deputy Director General of Vietnam Customs Mai Xuan Thanh said that complying with the directions by the Government in Resolutions 19 from 2015 to 2018, the Customs has advised the Ministry of Finance and the Government to amend and supplement regulations related to Customs procedures, inspection and supervision for import and export goods, means of transport on exit and entry to further facilitate import and export activity, contributing to the implementation of the target of reducing Customs clearance time across border gates to 70 hours for export goods and 90 hours for import goods.

The supervision mechanism for the implementation of task, the key solutions for improvement of the business environment and the enhancing of national competitiveness in the Customs field of agencies, associations and the business community are also the motivation and the pressure for the Customs sector to make efforts for the improvement of the Customs law system.

In the implementation and development of legal documents related to Customs field, the General Department of Vietnam Customs always updates and adjusts policies to be in line with the reality. During the development of these documents, it has also gathered comments from units inside and outside the sector, objects affected by these policies that are enterprises engaged in import, export, exit and entry.

Accordingly, in addition to focusing on amending key legal provisions in the Customs field, from the beginning of the year to now, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has chaired and advised competent agencies to supplement, amend and issue 5 decrees, 3 decisions and 3 circulars related to Customs field. The number of documents that were developed by the Customs has shown the great effort of policy makers on customs procedures with the target of providing the further facilitation for the business and the people.

Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh asserted that by issuing these legal documents, the implementation of Customs procedures has been improved and created more favorable conditions for import and export activities.

“Including, the promotion of information technology application in Customs operations, all information transactions and exchange between the Customs and declarant has been processed via the system, which has contributed to reducing contact between Customs officers and enterprises in carrying out administrative procedures, limiting trouble and negative, harassment that may occur, and reducing costs for enterprises,” Mr. Thanh emphasized.

Customs always enhances modern management method /VCN - Talking to the press on the morning of September 12, 2018, Mr. Nguyen Tran Hieu, ...

However, although the documents and policies were issued, took effect and have been applied in reality, the law dissemination of the Customs is still limited, so that many enterprises have not grasped these Customs legal documents in a timely fashion to apply in their business and import and export activities.

In the coming time, in order to timely instruct the business community to quickly grasp the State policies related to the business, imports and exports in the Customs field, the General Department of Vietnam Customs regularly reviews the Customs legal system to consult and propose new issues, supplementing, amending, replacing or abolishing documents to improve the system. At the same time, it handles shortcomings arising in reality, meeting requirements on the Customs management.

However, besides the effort by Government, ministries and sectors in general, and the General Department of Vietnam Customs in particular, the the initiative of the business community is very important.