Managing nearly 20,000 agricultural records by national single window

	National Single Window – a driving force for reform
	Eliminating paper records for 9 administrative procedures in agriculture
	Slowly uptake by enterprises for import licences for crops and plants in "National Single Window"

Up to August 31, 2016, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has received and handled a total of 25,531 electronic license records through the National Single Window (NSW); processed, settled and licensed, and electronic certificated 19,777 records; and processing 5,754 records.

Applying NSW helps enterprises to save time and effort when doing procedures. Photo: Nguyen Thanh

Talking to Customs reporters, representatives of MARD stressed: The implementation of E-licensing under the NSW, along with the application of digital signatures has really changed the traditional work of specialized management agencies of the Ministry in approaching the application of modern information technology.

At the same time, these moves also contributed to facilitate people and businesses, enhanced enterprise competitiveness in the spirit of Resolution 19 of the Government.

On the results of processing technical fixes and adding required expert functionality in the process of applying NSW, he said: Viettel's technical team in cooperation with the of Customs Information Technology and Statistics Department and the Center for Informatics and Statistics (MARD) works with some units having additional requests for professional functions, basically solving and fixing technical errors in the handling of documents, and information security, in units such as the Department of livestock Production, Animal Health, and Vietnam Cites Agency.

In particular, the receipt of documents through NSW now allows for receipt of 30Mb maximum size of an attachment file, each upload is 1 file independent of the number of uploads (it was previously only 2Mb).

In fact, since the beginning of this year until now, thanks to the coordinated support of the General Department of Customs and Viettel, MARD has organized training to improve professional capabilities for hundreds of officers and employees of the professional related unit of the Ministry to self-operate, work on the NSW system to meet regulatory requirements; while expand training and guidance to more than 300 related businesses nationwide applying NSW.

Despite achieving many positive results however, according to representatives of MARD, this is still a new job, difficult in the early stages on application, and needs the active cooperation from businesses and related agencies (e.g. Customs and Viettel).

Some units of MARD are still used to working with document processing manually, unfamiliar with handling the electronic system and is still lacking initiative in implemention in some units.

Besides, infrastructure, information technology and equipment of some units is not synchronized, restricting NSW implementation. In addition, there are still some enterprises used to doing paperwork manually, these units will receive training soon.

By 1/10/2016, all units under the Ministry are expected to be fully implemented for 9 administrative procedures of the first stage on the NSW system, and stop handling paper records. The Ministry shall issue a written notice to enterprises.

MARD requested General Departments, and Departments initiative to launch the expanded 9 administrative procedures on the NSW system in other locations (aviation gates, seaports and border gates, and regional bodies); concurrently make use of existing resources, actively collaborate with the Center for Informatics and Statistics (Project Owner), Viettel and the General Department of Customs to handle technical issues, and organize training to expand the application scope.

Concerning to the expansion of other administrative procedures (phase II) applied in NSW, in 2016, MARD will continue to expand the deployment of 2 additional administrative procedures at the Department of Animal Health: License quarantine certificate on import animal products (over 25,000 records / year), and Registration import quarantine for animal products imported into Vietnam for importer (4,500 records / year).

MARD has officially joined NSW from June 2015 in units under the Ministry including: General Department of Fisheries, General Department of Forestry, Department of Livestock, Department of Animal Health, Plant Protection Department, Department of Planting Horticulture, Department of Agriculture and Forestry-Fisheries Quality Management. 9 administrative procedures have been applied in NSW including: License CITES permit for enterprises export, import and re-export of specimens of animals and plants in the Appendices of CITES; Registration verification quality of aquatic import food; License on Imported plants that are not in the list permitted for production and trading; License on Imported Fertilizer that is not in the list permitted for production and trading; certificate quarantine on import, transit and domestic transportation of plants; Registration quality verification on imported animal feed; License quarantine certificate on export of animal products; License certificate for exported seafood produced in establishments in the priority list; Check, and grant certificates for exporting seafood shipments produced in establishments outside the priority list.