Force shipping lines to re-export if transporting scrap to Vietnam

Imported scrap was seized by Hai Phong Customs. Photo: Ngọc Linh

The Director General requested that if suspecting scrap, customs authority will conduct inspections and coercion for shipping lines then forcing to re-export.

At the same time, they will continue to manage goods strictly that are scrap, used goods that have characteristic of backlogged scrap in the customs management area and handle seriously cases of violation; to strictly control this items before importing to Vietnam; chairing, urging and coordinating with specialized ministries to implement solutions in order to enhance the effectiveness of specialized inspection for import – export goods.

The Customs sector would continue to expand to the whole country with the VASSCM system, focusing on managing bonded warehouses and inland warehouses. Currently, 29/35 Customs Departments have deployed the VASSCM system, of which 17 Customs Departments implement the system in bonded warehouses with a total of 477 enterprises, including 238 enterprises operating in airport warehouses and yards, ports and 139 enterprises operating bonded warehouse.

With the improvement of the effective and quality solution of inspection through container scanning machines, from April 16, 2019 to the end of May 15, 2019, the whole Customs sector conducted scanning on 3,416 containers. Thereby, 50 containers were detected (accounting for 1.46% of the total number of containers were scanned), detected 18 violations (accounting for 50% of the total suspected containers). The rate of detecting violations through scanning this month reached the highest rate in the early months of 2019.

Accordingly, in terms of channel classification, the whole country has 1,095,011 import and export declarations. Of that, the green channel accounted for 56.55%; the yellow channel accounted for 38.22%; and the red channel accounted for 5.23%. 1,745 administrative violations were detected and handled, including handling 1,392 cases of organizations and individuals; handling 353 cases of goods without owners; detected 1,843 violated declarations.

One outstanding result of the Customs sector in the first 5 months of 2019 is in anti-smuggling and trade fraud.

In the first 5 months of the year, the whole Customs sector chaired and coordinated to seize a total of 6,209 cases of violations in the field of customs, the value of infringing goods was estimated at 1,085 billion VND; State revenue reached 77.857 billion VND; Customs authorities have issued 12 decisions to prosecute and transfer to other authorities for prosecuting 44 cases.

With the results, Director General of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Can said that this was a positive development. However in order to deploy key tasks in 2019, the whole Customs sector needs to focus more on customs supervision and management.

Specifically, Mr. Can requested the units to continue to improve the management and operation of IT systems, and should complete the submission to the General Department for promulgating regulations on supervision, management and operation of the IT system of the Customs sector which would replace the regulation on management and operation of IT systems of the Customs sector issued in 2009.

Along with that is completing diagrams and professional problems of customs procedures for different types of import and export goods; deploy the implementation of the specialized inspection scheme and the customs supervision project in accordance with the approved plan; coordinate with units to implement customs management system at ports, warehouses and yards.

In term of revenue collection tasks, the General Director asked units to accurately assess the revenue collected in five months, turnover of goods and corresponding to the collected tax and refunded tax to balance the state revenues in the last months of the year.

The Director General asked to closely implement the solutions of revenue collection in the Directive of the Director General in the spirit of trade facilitation, control of factors related to state revenue in order to implement tasks effectively. In particular, it is necessary to focus on the tax calculation value for export goods, review the list of risk management on price to identify suspicious signs, conduct consultations and post-clearance audit effectively; implementing post-clearance audit for some exported commodities and control for exported consignments.

Applying risk management in customs supervision; improve the efficiency and effectiveness of using the scanning system of the Customs sector; risk management of import and export goods, people and vehicles on exit and entry. Completing and implementing risk management for the risk of taking advantage of green channel declaration for committing acts of smuggling and trade frauds.

In the work of anti-smuggling and trade fraud, the Director General requested to quickly develop regulations, processes and professional regulations on criminal investigation: processes and regulations on investigation activities accordance with the order of criminal procedure of Customs authority as guidance process; decision on regulating on titles and standards of investigators of customs authorities; develop training and fostering programs for customs officials in the field of criminal investigation.

For the internal management, the Director General requested to continue to strictly implement the working regulations of the General Department of Vietnam Customs; internal inspection and control regulations for the implementation of customs procedures, customs inspection and supervision; regulation on public service activities of Vietnam Customs; maintaining discipline of customs officials in the sector while performing public duties, strictly handling officials who violate regulations.