Efforts to improve Cross-Border Trade Transactions Index

	Survey on Cross-border Trade Transactions Index in August
	Improving the rank of cross-border trade transactions index: Needs synchronization
	Offering solutions to enhance the rank of cross-border trade transactions index

Professional activities at Mong Cai Border Gate Customs Branch (Quang Ninh Customs Department). Photo: Quang Hung

Administrative reform efforts

According to the World Bank (WB), in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the time of cross-border trade in Vietnam forimported goods was 132 hours, down 6 hours. Forexport goods, it is 105 hours, reduced by 3 hours (reducing the time for carrying out procedures at the border gate). The cost of cross-border trade transactions (including the cost of doing procedures at the border and the cost of preparing documents) for imported and exported goods has decreased by 19 USD.

Specifically, the operational time of the Customs authorities only accounted for 11 percent for imports and 4 percent for exports during the total time of import and export across borders. For handling units, storage in ports and logistics accounted for 28 percent for imports and 50 percent for exports. In addition, the operational time of specialized inspection agencies is very high, including the time of compliance with documents for specialized inspection (the time of preparing import and export dossiers) and the time of compliance at the border for non-customs offices (the time for checking and issuing quality inspection reports) accounts for 61 percent of import goods and 46 percent for export goods. Costs related to customs inspection and customs brokerage only account for 11 percent for imports and 10 percent for exports out of the total cost of import and export across borders.

Having obtained the above results, the Customs sector has actively implemented solutions on administrative reforms (institutional building; administrative procedure reform; organizational structure reform, quality improvement and human resources improvement; accelerating the application of information technology and modern customs management methods)with the goal of modernizing, improving management efficiency and reducing the time for customs clearance of goods across borders.

Notably, since2007, the General Department of Customs has applied increasingly strong and extensive risk management.Accordingly, it has established a system of goods flow criteria to check the focus, meeting the goal of harmonizing trade facilitation and improving management efficiency. As a result, the percentage of flow in 2017 (Green channel accounts for 57.66 percent, Yellow channel accounts for 37.16 percent, Red channel accounts for 5.17 percent); in 2018 (Green channel accounts for 58.81 percent, Yellow channel accounts for 36.10 percent, Red channel accounts for 5.09 percent); in 2019 (Green channel accounts for 56.10 percent, Yellow channel accounts for 38.69 percent, Red channel accounts for 5.21 percent).

Since 2014, the General Department of Customs has implemented electronic payment of taxes and fees through the Customs electronic payment portal, allowing Customs authorities to receive information about online tax and electronic payment from commercial banks, record revenue immediately after paying taxes, eliminate the manual comparison of tax payment documents between customs offices and the State Treasury and enterprises; reducing the time to complete tax obligations, contributing to cost savings for the parties, reducing time for customs clearance of goods. The General Department of Customs has signed an agreement to coordinate state budget collection with 42 commercial banks with the revenue via electronic payment gateway reaching 95.3 percent of the total revenue of the Customs sector. SinceNovember 26, 2019, the General Department of Customs officially implemented the Electronic Tax Payment Collection Program for five banks to help businesses be completely proactive without spending time and costs to pay taxes and cuttingcustoms clearance time for goods.

In addition, the General Department of Customs has implemented an automated goods clearance system (VNACCS/VCIS); deploying automatic customs supervision management system (VASSCM); determining in advance the codes of import and export goods; submitting and checking electronic documents through electronic customs data processing system.

Review and handle problems in groups

In 2020, the General Department of Customs will continue to promote the implementation of measures to improve the ranking of the cross-border trade transaction index.

Continue to promote the implementation of reform solutions, develop customs modernization in 2020 and implement measures to improve the ranking of cross-border trade transactions index identified as reform institutions; accelerate the application of information technology; promote implementation of electronic tax payment 24/7; expanding the implementation of automatic goods monitoring systems at warehouses, yards and ports; strengthen application of risk management and partnerships with Customs enterprises; strengthen implementation of customs integrity.

In addition, the General Department of Customs is actively developing plans to implement solutions in 2020 to overcome problems in order to reduce time and costs and facilitate businesses in the process of customs procedures. Specifically, summarize and review problems through the inter-ministerial group survey on the Cross-Border Trade Transactions Index in 2019; problems noted from dialogues with enterprises andbusiness associations to analyze the causes and clearly identify directions for dealing with problems in groups (internal handling, revision of legal documents) laws, guidelines, propaganda and explanation.