It is required to clarify the specialized inspection time

	Prime Minister urged to reduce specialized inspections
	Financial inspection: Correction for violations in using budget
	The Ministry of Industry and Trade agreed to reduce the specialized inspections

Customs officers of North Thang Long Industrial Zone Customs Branch (Hanoi Customs Department) are handling procedures for enterprises. Photo: N. Linh

According to the General Department of Customs, Government’s Resolution No. 19-2017 set an objective of reducing Customs clearance time for goods across borders in 2017 to 70 hours for exported goods and 90 hours for imported goods.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance is responsible for Customs procedures and relevant ministries and sectors are responsible for the specialized management and inspection procedures. Ministry of Planning and Investment is a leading unit in charge of monitoring the improvement of business environment index, national competitiveness and guiding relevant ministries and sectors to study the method, calculation, and significance of ranking index.

To implement this Government’s objective, recently, General Department of Customs has sent a written request to the Central Institute for Economic Management - Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) in cooperation with the World Bank to clarify the time under responsibility of Ministry of Finance, each ministry and sector of total Customs clearance time for goods across borders mentioned Resolution 19 / NQ-CP.

Urging ministries and sectors to control, evaluate and announce periodically specialized inspection time and set an objective of reducing reduce the Customs procedure time every year.

At the same time, the Central Institute for Economic Management plays as leading unit to summarize, report and inform Customs clearance time for goods across borders.

Over the past time, to control the process of Customs procedures, the General Department of Customs has hosted and coordinated with ministries and sectors to measure the Customs clearance time for imports and exports.

In 2013, the measurement of Customs clearance time for imports and exports under the study method of clearance time of the World Customs Organization (WCO) was organized. Its results were widely disseminated to the media and the business community.

In 2015, the Ministry of Finance (General Department of Customs) continued to host and collaborate with 6 ministries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and Ministry of National Defence) to jointly implement the measurement of clearance time for imported and exported goods under the supervision of VCCI and Vietnamese Fatherland Front Committee. However, Ministry of Finance said that only some ministries and sectors implemented and provided information as required, others did not.

The measurement results showed that time under the responsibility of Customs accounted for 28% of the total clearance time, the remaining 72% were under the responsibility of the specialized management agencies, port, warehouse and yard operators and the import-export businesses (goods owners).

The Ministry of Finance has reported to the Government on measurement results of the clearance time in 2015; at the Official Dispatch No. 1257/VPCP-KTTH dated September 29, 2016, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh assigned ministries and sectors to take initiative to control the actual specialized inspection time via implementation of self-assessment mechanism and periodic announcement for processing time.

Specialized inspections: Overlapping procedures and manual operations VCN- According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, procedures of specialized inspections accounted for up to ...

For General Department of Customs, measurements of clearance time are organized every year from the Department level to General Department level to control the Customs clearance time related to Customs’ responsibility.