From April 1st, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Area connects one more procedure to National Single Window Mechanism

Professional activities at Plant Quarantine Branch of Region 7 (Lang Son province). Photo: T.Bình

In order to coordinate the implementation, the General Department of Vietnam Customs - the Permanent Agency of Committee 1899 (National Steering Committee on ASEAN Single Window, NSW and Trade facilitation) has issued official dispatch No. 1994/TCHQ-CNTT to the provincial Customs Departments on the implementation of the above procedure.

Accordingly, from April 1, the above procedures will be implemented nationwide through the national single window mechanism for shipment, which only carries out plant quarantine and feedstuff originated from plants, but it does not have technical regulations that must both carry out plant quarantine and checking import quality.

The General Department of Vietnam Customs directed provincial Customs Departments to decentralise the use of the search function "phytosanitary certificate for imported plants, state inspection on quality of feedstuffs and aquafeeds originating from imported plant" for consignments in the two cases as mentioned above at the Customs Electronic Processing System (E-Customs) to customs officials.

At the same time, requesting customs officials working at the Customs Branch to access the E-Customs system for searching and exploit "phytosanitary certificate for imported plants, state inspection on food safety of imported goods originating from plant, state inspection on quality of feedstuffs and aquafeeds originating from imported plant" for shipments in the two cases as mentioned above and do not require enterprises to submit a paper document for permits already granted through NSW when implementing customs clearance.

Currently, on the menu of the E-Customs system, there are two procedures for granting phytosanitary certificate of import goods, including: "Granting phytosanitary certificate of import goods (procedure A)" and "granting phytosanitary certificate for imported plants, state inspection on food safety of imported goods originating from plant, state inspection on quality of feedstuffs and aquafeeds originating from imported plant for shipment which is only carried out plant quarantine and feedstuffs originated from plants but it does not have technical regulations yet that must both carry out plant quarantine and checking import quality (procedure B)”.

The General Department of Vietnam Customs instructed and allows enterprises to use the results of phytosanitary certificate of imported plant granted by plant quarantine agency before April 30, 2020 of "procedure A" or "procedure B" as a basis for clearance of quarantine goods.

After April 30, 2020 all phytosanitary certificates will be granted through "procedure B".

In addition, the Plant Quarantine Agency will support the granting of a phytosanitary certificate or registration certificate of inspection or notification of results of state inspection or conformity certificate of quality to the enterprises in case there is problems or fault of the system or not running smoothly, customs authority will accept paper documents in these cases.

For other shipments that do not fall into the two cases mentioned above, enterprises will continue to use paper documents until the system is updated in accordance with Decree 13/2020/ND-CP.