Ho Chi Minh City Customs wishes to cooperate with US Customs in many fields

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Customs Department worked with the Assistant Delegation of the US Customs Commissioner. Photo: T.H

At the meeting, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department Dinh Ngoc Thang shared with the delegation about the unit's outstanding activities in recent times.

Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department is a large Customs unit, carrying out 45% of the workload, 20% of turnover, and 1/3 of state budget revenue compared to the entire sector; Regularly handle customs procedures for 65,000 domestic and foreign-invested enterprises operating in the area.

In order to meet the large workload, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has focused on modernization, application of modern machinery and equipment, as well as information technology in the management and clearance of goods, etc.

In particular, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has a branch specialized in carrying out procedures for foreign-invested enterprises, including the US business community, with many large enterprises and corporations.

In particular, during the past 7 years, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has maintained the implementation of the plan "The business community and Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department are partners, cooperating for mutual development". Accordingly, the unit has actively organized conferences, seminars, and specialized training at the department level; proactively participate in programs and conferences to meet, interact and dialogue with businesses operating in the city; Promote foreign affairs and international cooperation through welcoming and working sessions with international delegations to share and exchange experiences in state management of customs.

Director Dinh Ngoc Thang gave a souvenir to Ms. Debbie Seguin. Photo: T.H

In addition to trade facilitation, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department always focuses on fighting smuggling and trade fraud, creating a transparent investment environment. Accordingly, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has drastically directed the inspection and determination of certificates of origin and labels to avoid cases of foreign goods "disguising" as Vietnamese goods to be exported to the foreign market; promptly prevent many acts of smuggling, fraud, import of prohibited goods. Ho Chi Minh City Customs has also focused on preventing many acts of smuggling goods, importing industrial waste into Vietnam.

At the meeting, Ms. Debbie Seguin thanked the warm welcome and shared a lot of useful information from the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department with the delegation. Ms. Debbie Seguin was very impressed with the results achieved by the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department and said that the professional activities of Vietnam Customs and US Customs have many similarities. Both sides are making great efforts to invest in modern equipment, apply technology to improve labor productivity, apply risk management in control and customs clearance of goods.

Ms. Debbie Seguin shared that currently, the US Customs is having a program to prevent smuggling of precursors and chemicals to produce new synthetic drugs. “This item is mainly smuggled by air. This is a very big and worrying problem, so US Customs is trying to cooperate with domestic and foreign partners to prevent it," said Ms. Debbie Seguin.

The delegation of Assistant Commissioners of US Customs took souvenir photos with Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department. Photo: T.H

In addition, US Customs focuses on enforcing the prevention of forced labor. Goods using forced labor in whole or in part are blocked at the US border; Along with that, focus on implementing anti-dumping regulations; Management cooperation for transshipment goods, etc.

Sharing about the coordination between the two countries' Customs, Ms. Debbie Seguin said that the two countries' Customs need to have direct cooperation between border gates and ports, sharing information and creating trade facilitation, helping to quickly clear customs and clear imported shipments in advance, ensuring national security and facilitating trade.

Thanking Ms. Debbie Seguin for sharing valuable information, Director Dinh Ngoc Thang said that the proposals for coordination and information sharing between US Customs and Vietnam Customs that Ms. Debbie Seguin proposed were also is the wish of Ho Chi Minh City Customs. In particular, the two sides cooperate to promote anti-smuggling work, especially drug crimes, money laundering. Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department hopes to have the US Customs share experiences in many fields, of which the most important is human resource training; technological support, information sharing on smuggling and drug prevention, etc.