Lang Son Customs Department meets requirements for official operation of specialized roads for goods transport and customs clearance crossings

	Lang Son Customs has drastically implemented solutions to promote customs clearance
	Lang Son Customs cooperates to fight smuggling and trade fraud

Customs clearance across specialized roads for goods transport at Tan Thanh Border Gate. Photo: H.N

Facilitating customs clearance

According to statistics from the Management Board of Dong Dang - Lang Son Border Gate Economic Zone, from the end of April 2024 until now, on average per day about 400 vehicles transporting fresh fruits to the border area of the province. In order to ensure the quality of fresh fruit shipments, enforcement agencies at border gates have flexibly implemented solutions to promote customs clearance of the items.

Talking to Customs News, Vu Van Binh, Manager of Tan Thanh Customs Branch (Lang Son Customs Department) said that at this time, on average, about 322 cargo trucks are cleared per day, including 195 import vehicles and 127 export vehicles, mostly are vehicles transporting agricultural products and fresh fruits. Agricultural products exported across Tan Thanh Border Gate include watermelon, jackfruit, mango, dragon fruit, tapioca starch...

At Huu Nghi International `Border Gate, the branch processes customs clearance for 1,000 vehicles carrying imported and exported goods, including about 669 vehicles carrying export goods and 327 vehicles carrying imported goods. The number of vehicles alone carrying out agricultural products and fresh fruits for export every day across this border gate reaches 248 vehicles, which mainly are durian, dragon fruit, jackfruit, grapefruit, lychee...

Notably, the volume of lychees transported from Bac Giang to implement export procedures to the Chinese market across border gates in Lang Son province also surges.

To ensure the quality of exported fresh fruit shipments, Lang Son Customs Department has directed border gate customs branches to actively coordinate with other enforcmeent authorities to prioritize procedures for fresh fruit shipments; agree with the Chinese authorities to prolong customs clearance time to 8 p.m, even to 9p.m every day to improve customs clearance efficiency. Currently, Huu Nghi International Border Gate and Tan Thanh Border Gate, where have the largest volume of vehicles transporting fresh fruit, have worked on Saturday and Sunday.

It is forecasted that the following months will be the peak harvest of many types of domestic agricultural products, especially fresh fruits from the southern provinces, leading to the increase in the number of trucks carrying export goods to Huu Nghi International Border Gate and Tan Thanh Border Gate.

Therefore, in order to ensure regular and continuous circulation of import-export activities, Lang Son Provincial People's Committee said that the official launching of specialized roads for goods transport and customs clearance crossings at Huu Nghi International Border Gate, especially for Vietnam's exported agricultural products and fresh fruits.

Soon regulate the scope of operations

Regarding the official opening of specialized roads for goods transport and customs clearance crossings at Huu Nghi International Border Gate, on March 18, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam issued Note No. 234/BNG-UBBG responding to Note No. 21/2023 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. Accordingly, the Vietnamese side agreed to officially confirm the official operation of specialized roads for goods transport and customs clearance crossings at Huu Nghi International Border Gate.

The representative of Lang Son Customs Department said that procedures for operation of specialized roads for goods transport and customs clearance crossings under the nature of international border gate are regulated fully.

Regarding the customs management, Lang Son Customs Department said that currently the scope of customs operations in specialized roads for goods transport at landmark 1088/2-1089 has not been fully supplemented in the appendix of the scope of customs control area issued together with Decree 12/2018/ND-CP dated January 23, 2018 of the Government amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 01/2015/ND-CP.

Lang Son Customs Department has directed the Anti-Smuggling and Offences Handling Division to work with the Border Gate Board under the Lang Son Border Guard Command to advise the Lang Son Provincial People's Committee on the survey plan and determination of the scope of the border gate area along the entire route in Lang Son province for the People's Committee of Lang Son province to submit to the Government for consideration and decision.

At the same time, Lang Son Customs Department has reported to the General Department of Vietnam Customs and proposed the local government to direct local agencies to soon implement the work to ensure legality for customs control and effective operation in the area.

Regarding the arrangement of forces to perform state management tasks on customs at specialized roads for goods transport and customs clearance crossings, the department has actively made plans to assign specific tasks for units for performance.

Accordingly, specialized roads for goods transport at marker area 1088/2-1089 has been piloted since 2019 and is assigned to Tan Thanh Customs Branch for management. Therefore, after this route is officially announced, Lang Son Customs Department proposed to continue assigning Tan Thanh Customs Branch to perform customs management in this area.

For the Tan Thanh - Po Chai customs clearance crossing, it is proposed to assign Tan Thanh Customs Branch to manage because this area is located in the Tan Thanh Border Gate area.

Coc Nam Customs Branch still manages Coc Nam - Lung Nghiu customs clearance crossing because it is located in the Coc Nam Border Gate area.

However, Lang Son Customs Department said that currently there have not a working office at the specialized roads for goods transport, Lang Son Provincial People's Committee rents an office of Bao Nguyen Commercial Transport Joint Stock Company for forces to work, causing difficulties for arrangement to work in professional manner.

The Department will coordinate with enforcement forces to propose the People's Committee of Lang Son province to invest in building a working office, ensuring equipment and facilities for the forces at the specialized roads for goods transport, meeting the state management requirements in a modern and smart direction, ensuring favorable conditions for a border gate that has large volume of import-export agricultural goods of the whole country.