Lang Son: Bustling with exports at the beginning of the year

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Vehicles transporting goods at Huu Nghi international border gate. Photo: H.Nu

Sweet fruit from the remote region

According to Lang Son Customs Department, in January with favorable customs clearance, the unit received and processed 12,212 sets of declarations with a total turnover of 349,180 million USD, an increase of 109.9% over the same period of 2023. The unit has also collected and paid to the state budget reaching 347,154 million VND, an increase of 119.54% over the same period in 2023, reaching 6.94% of the assigned target. In addition, Lang Son Customs Department has implemented fee collection according to Decision No. 24/2019/QD-UBND dated December 31, 2019 of the People's Committee, which reached 38 billion VND.

In the last days of the year, the flow of people and vehicles crossing the Vietnam - China border is more vibrant and bustling. Huu Nghi international border gate is submerged in cold air. Despite the harsh weather, Huu Nghi international border gate still welcomes hundreds of vehicles transporting goods for customs clearance every day.

Looking at the line of vehicles moving towards the border gate, we remember that during Tet in 2022 and 2023, the Chinese side still tightened measures to prevent and control the Covid-19 epidemic, causing thousands of agricultural product carts to be waiting for customs clearance procedures. At that time, each day the number of carts cleared through customs was only about 600-700 carts, and some days only 100-200 carts were cleared.

Talking to us, Mr. Nguyen Cong Thanh, Deputy Director of Huu Nghi Border Gate Customs Sub-department informed: in January 2024, the unit received and processed customs clearance procedures for 4,142 sets of declarations with turnover reaching over 198 million USD, through which the unit collected more than 270.4 billion VND to the state budget.

To achieve the above results, since December 2023 until now, Huu Nghi Customs has focused on increasing the customs clearance capacity of import and export goods such as shortening customs clearance time and arranging civil servants in the professional line to work overtime, ensuring that 100% of shipments, if customs procedures have been completed according to regulations, are actually exported and imported within the same day. In particular, the Sub-department arranges officials to receive and handle procedures for businesses up to 10 p.m., even 11 p.m. if there are still declarations that need to be processed. At the same time, Huu Nghi Border Gate Customs Sub-department also maximizes the role of the Citizen Reception Team and the Problem Resolution Team for businesses, ensuring all businesses' problems are answered and resolved within the same day, Mr. Nguyen Cong Thanh said.

Saying goodbye to Huu Nghi border gate, we arrived at Tan Thanh border gate. Now we no longer see hundreds of trucks carrying agricultural products lining up at the border gate area like last year. Director of Tan Thanh Customs Sub-department Nguyen Van Binh said that, with the characteristics of being a land border gate with large export activities of agricultural products in the country, the main export items are: dragon fruit, mango, jackfruit, etc, more than 90% of the total turnover of import-export agricultural products passes through this border gate. To create favorable conditions for import and export trucks to serve the needs of goods consumed during the Lunar New Year between the two countries, in recent days, Tan Thanh Customs has proactively deployed many measures to create the most favorable conditions for Customs clearance activities to be smooth. To handle all procedures for large volumes of goods, limit damage to goods, costs and time for businesses, Tan Thanh Customs has coordinated with the Border Guard and yard businesses to arrange officials to receive and handle procedures with the motto "do all the work, not all the time".

Simultaneously, the Customs agency arranged a priority flow for fresh fruit products to be cleared on the same day, actively discussing with the Chinese side to come up with many solutions to increase customs clearance capacity in the region step by step.

Mr. Hoang Quoc Tanh (from Quang Nam), the owner of a dragon fruit truck, happily said that last year at this time, the truck had to wait nearly a month to bring goods across the border, sometimes half of the goods were damaged, had to bear the loss and return the car. This year, the car was exported the same day, the only concern was the lack of export goods. The Customs and Border Guards have arranged officers and combatants to provide a lot of support for businesses' goods to be cleared quickly.

Signal for a prosperous year

Along with the exciting atmosphere at the border gates, Lang Son Customs Department is making efforts to contribute to completing the tasks for a difficult year ahead.

Mr. Nguyen Hong Linh, Director of Lang Son Customs Department shared: "Ahead of the new year with many hopes, the collective of officials and employees of Lang Son Customs Department will continue to unite and be creative to achieve assigned political tasks successfully, especially the task of collecting the state budget in 2024".

Lang Son Customs continues to direct border gate customs Sub-department to deploy solutions to attract import-export businesses to operate through the province's border gates. In addition, units are required to maximize the benefits of information technology systems and digital border gate platforms to pre-monitor the amount of goods arriving at border gates in order to proactively deploy professional measures to ensure for smooth customs clearance of goods. From there, it ensures that the customs declaration dossier is processed and completed as soon as the enterprise's shipment is available at the border gate area. "Hopefully, entering 2024, import-export activities at the province's border gates will have many changes," Director Nguyen Hong Linh expected.

To promote customs clearance of export and import goods at border gates in the province, Chairman of Lang Son Provincial People's Committee Ho Tien Thieu affirmed that in the coming time, it is forecast that the demand for exchange and purchase and sale of import and export goods to serve the production of businesses, as well as the consumption of the two countries' people during Tet will increase sharply; The situation of customs clearance of import and export goods through border gates in Lang Son province will improve. Based on the results achieved, Lang Son will continue to synchronously and drastically implement solutions to remove difficulties and promote import and export activities of goods through border gates in the area, especially agriculture products and export goods.

Thereby, performing well the political tasks as well as the socio-economic development tasks of the province, contributing to promoting the rapid development of the border gate economy, creating a driving force to promote the province's economic growth in the spirit of Resolution of the 17th Lang Son Provincial Party Congress, term 2020-2025.

We left Lang Son in an extremely excited mood when looking at the busy and bustling shipments clearing customs, signaling the beginning of a year of favorable operations for businesses and the socio-economic of Lang Son border province.