Customs sector proactively supports import and export easing in first six months of 2020

	Developing plan to deploy 60 procedures on National Public Services Portal
	Customs reforms tax management policy accompanies with enterprises
	Customs sector collects VND 123,484 billion for State revenue

The conference: Photo: Q. Hung

Promote reform amid Covid-19 pandemic

A video clip summarizing the preliminary report on performance in the first six months of the year, orientations and solutions for carrying out the tasks in the last six months of 2020 showed determination of the General Department of Customs with the goal of ensuring the implementation of anti-pandemic measures and supporting easing of imports and exports.

Facing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on production and business as well as import and export activities, the General Department of Customs has actively developed plans and contingency plans to cope with the complicated developments of the pandemic according to each level, effectively preventing the Covid-19 pandemic and supporting and facilitating import and export of goods, means of immigration, luggage of passengers and ensuring customs management.

In developing and perfecting mechanisms and policies, in the first six months of 2020, the General Department of Customs actively coordinated with relevant units to develop and complete draft documents. Some notable legal documents issued during this period include Decree No. 46/2020 / ND-CP on customs procedures, customs inspection and supervision of goods in transit through ASEAN Customs transit system; Decree No. 64/2020 / ND-CP guiding the implementation of the temporary admission mechanism under the Istanbul Convention; Decree No. 67/2020 / ND-CP amending and supplementing Decree No. 68/2016 / ND-CP on business conditions for duty-free shops, warehouses, yards and places for customs clearance, customs inspection and supervision; and Decision No. 431 / QD-TTg of March 27, 2020 of the Prime Minister approving the scheme on management of e-commerce activities.

The General Department of Customs also submitted to the Ministry of Finance to promulgate four circulars, of which Circular No. 47/2020 / TT-BTC dated May 27, 2020 removed obstacles and created favorable conditions for enterprises to submit certificates of origin and forms of certificates of origin for imported goods applicable during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Customs reform and modernization continues to be a focus with important activities such as: promoting customs and business dialogues, organizing the assessment of enterprises' satisfaction with customs clearance; assessing the National Single Window and measuring customs clearance time; reforming human resources and investing in modern equipment in customs supervision and inspection. On June 30, the General Department bought and put into use three HQ85 ships and three HQ200 ships; one speedboat; one camera observation room; ten drug detectors; four cargo luggage scanners; and three surveillance camera systems. The procurement of modern machinery and equipment has helped customs units perform their professional tasks, ensure greater transparency and efficiency,shorten the clearance time for goods and create more favorable conditions for enterprises.

As of June 30, there were 13 ministries and sectors participating in the connection, with 198 procedures, nearly 3.2 million sets of dossiers and over 39,500 enterprises.The National Single Window and the ASEAN Single Window has been implemented by the General Department of Customs and ministries and branches in accordance with the Government's Resolution No. 02 / NQ-CP of January 1, 2019.

Regarding the ASEAN Single Window, the total C/O Vietnam received from ASEAN countries was 234,953 and the total C/O Vietnam sent to the countries was 424,270.

Vietnam has connected with non-ASEAN partners to exchange messages on piloting export customs declarations; negotiate with them to exchange certificates of origin with the Eurasian Economic Union; exchange electronic origin certificates with Korea and electronic quarantine certificate with New Zealand.

The General Department of Customs is actively completing the project "Reforming inspection model of quality and food safety for imported goods"to cut costs, time and create favorable conditions for enterprises.

Application of information technology and online public services continues to be promoted. The General Department of Customs has focused on building and redesigning the Customs IT system; provided nearly 90% of online public services at levels 3 and 4 and collected budget revenue electronically accounting for over 97.3% of the total revenue of the General Department of Customs.

In the state budget collection, from the beginning of the year, the General Department of Customs issued Directive No. 1040 / CT-TCHQ dated February 21, 2020 to implement solutions synchronously and drastically to facilitate trade, improve the efficiency of state management and combat revenue losses.

However, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the revenues of the provincial and municipal customs departments were mostly affected. As a result, as of June 30, the entire sector collected VND149,015 billion, 44.08% of the estimate, equaling 41.98% of the target, down 15.53% compared to the same period in 2019.

Effective anti-smuggling

Anti- smuggling and anti-trade fraud were a focus amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As a standing agency of the Steering Committee 389 of the Ministry of Finance, the General Department of Customs advised the Ministry of Finance to cooperate with other ministries, sectors and competent agencies to strengthen the fight against smuggling, trade fraud, counterfeit goods and illegal cross-border transportation of goods, thereby contributing to cleaning the business environment and creating trust for consumers.

From December 16, 2019 to June 15, 2020, the whole sector handled 8,681 cases, the value of infringing goods was estimated at over VND1,685 billion (of which, 128 cases of smuggling and illegal cross-border transport of goods, 108 drug cases, 12 cases of intellectual property infringement and counterfeit goods and 8,433 administrative violations); State budget revenues reached more than VND304 billion; prosecuted 18 criminal cases, transferred other agencies to prosecute 56 cases.

In addition to professional activities, in the first six months of 2020, the General Department of Customs also performed the building of human resources; inspection and control work and international cooperation.

Based on the achievements in the first half of 2020, at this conference, the leaders of the Ministry of Finance and leaders of the General Department of Customs directly listened to the units and departments under the General Department of Customs and provincial and municipal Customs departments on exchange and discussion of the achievements in the first six months and problems, difficulties and proposed solutions to perform tasks in the last six months of 2020.

At this conference, leaders of customs departments focused on assessing the achieved results in customs supervision, State budget collection, anti- smuggling and anti-trade fraud and introduced some solutions for the Customs sector to fulfill the assigned tasks.