Customs Law 2014: A journey of more than 8 years into practice – Last article: Transparent and effective national single-window mechanism

	Customs Law 2014: A journey of more than 8 years into practice – Part 1: Facilitating import-export and immigration activities
	Customs Law 2014: A journey of more than 8 years into life - Lesson 2: Impressions of electronic customs procedures
	Customs Law 2014: A journey of more than 8 years into practice – Part 3: Customs procedures appreciated by the business community

Under the witness of the President of the Republic of Korea and President Vo Van Thuong, Deputy Director General of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Tho, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan and High Commissioner of Korean Customs Yoon Tea Sik signed Joint statement on the implementation of connection to the EODES electronic origin data exchange system (June 25, 2023). Photo: Viet Nga

Benefit from numbers

Speaking of integration, it is likely to mention the key role of the Customs sector in implementing NSW and ASW. As the Standing Agency of the National Steering Committee on ASEAN Single Window, National Single Window and Trade Facilitation, the General Department of Customs has made efforts to coordinate relevant ministries and branches to Vietnam being one of the first four countries in the region to connect to ASW (along with Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) in September 2015.

Vietnam is continuing to maintain official connections to exchange electronic certificate of origin information form D with all 9 ASEAN member countries. In addition, Vietnam has also coordinated with the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN countries to officially exchange ASEAN customs declarations as planned; Prepare related requirements to connect and test the exchange of plant quarantine certificates in 2023; exchange to build solutions and roadmaps to connect and exchange electronic documents between ASEAN and partners such as Japan and China.

Currently, Vietnam Customs has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the electronic origin data exchange system (EODES) with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the General Department of Customs of Korea to facilitate the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement and officially deployed from July 1, 2023. In particular, as of September 30, 2023, the NSW Information Portal has connected 13 ministries and branches with 250 connected administrative procedures.

To achieve the connection among ministries, branches and countries like now, few people know that before 2014, procedures still had to be done manually. At the present time, assessments of ministries and branches show that the implementation of ASW has helped "erase the purely geographical boundaries" among countries, while the implementation of NSW has helped gradually eliminate the concept of "rule" in the management work of each ministry and sector to join hands for a common goal, a common policy on building a tectonic Government, accompanying the development of people and enterprises.

In the management area of Quang Ninh Customs Department, in 2015, this unit implemented NSW at 6/6 affiliated sub-department; ASW initially provided electronic C/O form D from 4 countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

In 2020, Quang Ninh Customs processed 1,844 sets of declarations of import and export goods subject to specialized inspection and returned on the NSW system, receiving 179 electronic C/O form D from countries through ASW, in 2021, the number of imported shipments subject to specialized inspection returned on the NSW system at the unit was 2,206 and 430 C/O form D were provided through the NSW and ASW systems.

Also evaluating the efficiency of handling work through NSW and ASW, Dong Nai Customs Department said that from 2015 up to now, the unit had carried out 105 administrative procedures, including 102 procedures at the administrative procedures level 4. In 2022, Dong Nai Customs received 1,029,874 registration applications through NSW and the unit resolved 1,029,295 applications.

According to Quang Tri Customs Department, NSW was a connection base, aiming to develop ASW, which had improved efficiency and transparency in the professional work of the Customs agency and state management in general, limited direct contact between enterprises and agencies, departments and branches. In particular, during the Covid-19 outbreak, receiving and processing documents on the online platform had really brought many practical effects.

Also according to Quang Tri Customs Department, currently most certificates of origin (C/O) from ASEAN countries were issued on the electronic data system, helping enterprises and Customs authorities to proactively exploit use without having to submit traditional paper documents.

According to the assessment of Quang Binh Customs Department, the information lookup rate on NSW and ASW for Plant Quarantine Certificates reached 95%; Animal quarantine certificate reaches 90%. The exploitation rate of e-C/O form D of Thailand reached over 80%.

Many people probably cannot forget the "storm" of the Covid-19 pandemic that devastated the world in the past 3 years. In the first months of 2022, although the Covid-19 pandemic situation eased but still had a strong impact, the Chinese side had strengthened pandemic control, making customs clearance activities extremely hard at border gate areas. Tight control of the pandemic delayed customs clearance activities, while the amount of goods flowing into border gate areas caused congestion.

With the results shown, the implementation of NSW and ASW has helped reduce paperwork, shorten time, and reduce costs of implementing administrative procedures in the field of import and export, fundamentally change management methods. specialized inspection; At the same time, promote the development of e-Government, improve the quality and operational efficiency of State agencies, serving people and enterprises better and better.

It can be affirmed that the IT system of the Customs sector ensures the management of enterprises, import-export and transit goods; means of transport for entry and exit, comprehensive transit from beginning to end. According to the goal of striving to 2025, complete the implementation of connections with Government agencies and parties in the supply chain related to e-commerce activities for import and export goods across the border in NSW, ASW platform.

Continuing to perform well in the role of NSW coordinator

The efficiency that NSW and ASW bring in the process of carrying out customs procedures for import and export goods has been confirmed. However, according to Deputy Director of the Bureau of Information Technology and Customs Statistics (General Department of Customs) Pham Duyen Phuong, the process of implementing NSW showed some shortcomings that should be overcome and improved to enhance the public service quality of State agencies; implement administrative procedures in NSW actually; Reducing costs and compliance time for enterprises while still ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of state management.

To deploy Digital Government and overcome shortcomings in the process of implementing NSW, the Ministry of Finance has reported to the Government and Prime Minister a draft Decree regulating the implementation of connection and information sharing in the import-export field, transit of goods, immigration, transit of people and means of transport according to NSW and the Master Plan on building and developing IT systems to serve the implementation of NSW and ASW. At the same time, complete and submit to competent authorities for approval the draft Decree on NSW, ASW, specialized inspection and trade facilitation for import and export goods to remove current difficulties and obstacles.

At the same time, the Ministry of Finance has been presiding and coordinating with ministries and branches to accelerate the progress of building and implementing the Master Project on building and developing IT systems to serve the implementation of NSW and ASW according to centralized processing orientation.

Regarding limitations and shortcomings, according to Tay Ninh Customs Department, for receiving and checking imported Plant Quarantine Certificates, and state inspection of food, and safety goods through NSW at Moc Bai, Xa Mat, Ka Tum, Phuoc Tan border gates, the quarantine agency had not yet issued the Import Plant Quarantine Certificate. Therefore, during the process of carrying out customs procedures, the Customs agency still had to request enterprises to submit paper copies of these certificates. Tay Ninh Customs Department believed that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, specifically the Plant Protection Bureau, should review procedures and thoroughly implement the reception and return of results through NSW for the procedures that had been announced implementation.

Khanh Hoa Customs Department reflected that the data connection among specialized management agencies was not stable. Sometimes the Customs agency could not exploit goods management information from specialized agencies, which greatly affected customs clearance time for enterprises.

​According to Deputy Director of Hanoi Customs Department Nguyen Truong Giang, currently, many ministries and branches have not implemented NSW on all administrative procedures. When issuing import licenses for conditional imported goods, paper copies must still be used, and have not been updated promptly to the NSW system such as: the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs; Ministry of Science and Technology, so when conducting a search to clear goods, it took a long time. For licenses in the lookup module of the Ministry of Health, the Customs could not see the content of the attached appendix. In particular, for goods that must be inspected for quality at the customs clearance stage such as old machinery and equipment... it was still done from the registration stage to notification of results by paper.

Deputy Director Nguyen Truong Giang emphasized that the number of used machinery and equipment imported at units under the Hanoi Customs Department was relatively large. So in the coming time, inspection implementation of enterprises under the direction of the authorized state management must be connected or send results to the authorized unit to connect and integrate all data of the NSW system.

Also according to the assessment of many customs units, the system of legal documents related to specialized inspection activities was not synchronized and unified; the inspection order and procedures still included many steps, which were excessively necessary, were inconsistent and overlapped in specialized inspections; many tests but found very low results; high cost of specialized inspection...

In the coming time, the General Department of Customs will continue to build and complete the system of documents guiding the Customs Law, the Law on Export Tax, and Import Tax..., It is expected that the draft Customs Law replacing the Customs 2014 will regulate in detail and specifically the submission of customs documents when applying NSW, specialized state management agencies send import-export licenses, and documents notifying specialized inspection results in electronic form through an integrated information system.