HCM City Customs Department achieves highest reveneue in the whole Customs sector

	HCM City Customs Department facilitates imports and exports
	Post-clearance audit as key solution to combat revenue loss of HCM City Customs Department

HCM City Customs Department instructs procedures enterprises. Photo: T.H

Trade deficit reaches over US$ 3.8 bilion

According to HCM City Customs Department, in the first half of the year, the department processed over 1.5 million declarations, down 10.97% year-on-year.

The total trade in goods in the first half of the year reached US$ 56.98 billion, ranking second in the whole Customs sector. The import turnover and export turnover decreased by 23.34% and 18.69% to US$ 30.39 billion and US$ 26.59 billion compared with the previous year, respectively. HCM City had a trade deficit of US$ 3.8 billion in the first half of the year.

However, the import and export activities in the city dropped 21.23% year-on-year due to the effect by risks and challenges from the world and domestic economies in the recovery phase, the plunge in the world demand and price of import and export goods, high logistics costs, the slow process of greening some areas, making the competitiveness of some import and export products of Vietnam lower than those of other countries.

The import turnover of some major commodity groups dropped such as computers falling 30% to US 6.39 billion; machinery, equipment, tools, and other spare parts declining to US$ 2.91 billion, petroleum products to US$ 1.25 billion, fabricsto US$ 1.19 billion. Only the import turnover of pharmaceutical products increased by more than 3.8% to US$ 1.3 billion.

Export turnover of some high-value products also saw a decrease such as computers, electronic products and components down about 30% to US$6.56 billion; textiles and garments down about 8% to $2.59 billion; fishery products down 40.31% to US$1.59 billion. Only the turnover of rice products and coffee rose 35.5% and 11.42% to US$ 1.94 billion and US$1.42 billion, respectively.

Revenue of 11 of 12 customs branches falls

HCM City Customs Department is assigned a revenue target of VND 145,800 billion, up 25.15% compared with the target of 2022.

The department’s revenue in the first half of the year reached VND63,271.1 billion, meeting 43.4% of the target, ranking first in the whole sector. However, the revenue decreased by 10.77% year-on-year.

According to the department, the decrease in state budget revenue compared to the same period in 2022 results from the tightening of monetary policy, leading to a plummet in the purchasing demand of consumers around the world and the volume of orders. The global supply chain continues to face the risk of disruption.

Specifically, the taxable import turnover of some product groups as petroleum products fell 13.7%, leading to a decrease in revenue of about VND1,783 billion.

The taxable import turnover of computers, electronic products, and components decreased by 43.3%, reducing the state budget revenue by about VND1,236.4 billion; iron and steel of down 38.2%, reducing state budget revenue by about VND898.6 billion.

The revenue of 11 of 12 customs branches sees a plunge of 40-45% compared with the target and tends to decrease compared to the same period in 2022. The revenue at some major customs branches also drops such as Zone 1st Sai Gon Seaport Customs Branch down over VND 4,500 billion; Investment/Processing Customs Branch down over VND 2,400 billion, Zone 3rd Sai Gon Seaport Customs Branch down over VND4,300 billion, Tan Son Nhat International Airport Customs Branch down over VND 900 billion.

The revenue of the HiepPhuoc Customs Branch alone increases over VND6,000 billion year-on-year, meeting 60% of the target.

The objective reason is that the revenue of goods groups imported across the branch as CBU car sees positive results in the first half of the year, up 11.4% in volume and 4.7% in value.

However, the implementation of a 50% reduction of registration fees for domestically assembled and manufactured cars under Decree No. 41/2023/ND-CP dated June 28, 2023 (effective date from July 1) will put great pressure on the state budget collection of HCM City Customs Department in the second half of the year in the context of the continuous decline in purchasing power in the Vietnamese auto market.

In addition, the 2% -VAT reduction under Resolution 43/2022/QH15 taking effect from July 1 makes the state revenue from VAT of the City Customs Department in the second half of the year estimated to decrease by VND 2,588 billion.

The Department forecasts that as of December 31, the revenue is estimated to fall 12.47% year-on-year to VND125,200 billion, only reaching 85.87% of the estimate.