Developing Customs - business partnership: Rights and obligations of both parties

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One activity is in the action chain for enhancing the Customs-Business partnerships of the local Customs unit.

Desire for a timely cooperation

Strengthening the Customs-Business Partnership in Customs modernization in 2018 is also the main topic of a workshop organized by the General Department of Customs in Da Nang.

Mr. Dao Huy Giam, General Secretary of the Vietnam Private Sector Forum (VPSF) highly appreciated the Customs sector’s efforts in applying IT for customs reform and modernization. As a devotee of trade policy and foreign trade management, Mr. Dao Huy Giam was satisfied with the target of facilitating enterprises presented in the documents and meetings of the management agencies at all levels.

In recent years, the e-customs system has been running smoothly and covered almost all import and export activities. These results were due to the efforts to overcome the difficulties of not only the management agencies but also the business community, with the goal of changing from the manual management into the modern management.

"It is easy to say modernization in words but difficult to carry out it, which requires unified management policies, human resources, equipment, operational process and facilitation to service users,” – Mr. Giam stated.

Mr. Giam said that the concern of enterprises were the IT application, new management policies that should be associated with stable and convenient running, the further enhancement of business dialogue and the recognition of problems of enterprises for perfecting the Customs law and policies.

Sharing information on Customs reform and modernization with the business community, a representative of the Customs control and Supervision Department said that the General Department of Customs is actively coordinating with ministries and sectors to review the policy on specialized management, thereby proposing to cut procedures and update them to the National Single Window Portal. In addition, the General Department of Customs is drafting a decree regulating the implementation of administrative procedures under the National Single Window, ASEAN Single Window and specialized inspection of import and export goods, which clarifies the responsibilities of each ministry and defines goods subject to specialized inspection in customs clearance and post-clearance inspection.

Need the initiative from the business community

In Customs management, the highlight is the deployment of automated system for seaport Customs management (VASSCM). Starting from the pilot deployment at Hai Phong seaport and Noi Bai International Airport, then the deployment process was included in Decree 59/2018 / ND-CP and Circular 39/2018 / TT-BTC. At present, the General Department of Customs is actively deploying the system at international border gates and seaports as well as inland warehouses and regularly monitors the deployment to deal with problems arising in a timely fashion

A representative of the Customs IT and Statistics Department said that in the coming time, the General Department of Customs will strengthen the centralized supply of information for enterprises as well as related units instead of updating information to Customs unit’s own portals, leading to different answers. Further more, the General Department of Customs will focus on raising the quality of the answers to the enterprises and people.

In addition to supporting activities from the Customs for enterprises, it is expected that the business community will actively participate in the partnership. For example, in the consultation, Mr. Hoang Dinh Trung, Deputy Director of Customs Reform and Modernization Board under the General Department of Customs said that Customs has synchronized many measures to develop the Customs-business partnership, in which there is a measure to boost the consultation with regulations on guiding provincial and municipal Customs units to organize the professional consultation sessions. The consultation focuses on not only policies but also contents linked to the Customs process of enterprises and Customs agencies at all levels. The successful consultation requires the participation and cooperation from the business community.

Developing Customs - Business Partnerships: Efforts from both sides VCN- According to the General Department of Customs, the development of customs - businesses partnerships is consistent ...

Deputy Director of Da Nang Customs Department Nguyen Thi Thanh Van said that the development of Customs –business partnership means that both customs and enterprises have the right and the obligations. The Customs must publicize information. When there are any new documents, the Customs must send invitations to enterprises to the meeting for propaganda and dissemination. However, it is not always possible for enterprises to participate in the Customs expectation. The participants are mainly employees (who frequently change their jobs). Mrs. Van said that besides the positive initiative of the Customs, enterprises should also pay attention to the quality of questions sent to the management agencies. "There are unclear and unspecific questions, so that the Customs consulting division cannot answer. Even in many cases, the consulting division also proactively calls to ask enterprises about their problems. In order to give timely and accurate answers, enterprises should raise clear and specific questions, and accordingly the Customs with the sense of responsibility will reply in detail,"- Deputy Director of Mrs. Van suggested.