Many advances in reducing logistics costs come from Customs authorities

Mr. Nguyen Huu Nghiep, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department shared at the seminar. Photo: C.L

Mr. Nguyen Huu Nghiep, Deputy Director of the HCM City Customs Department, said that HCM City Customs Department has coordinated with Saigon Newport Corporation to build a project to facilitate trade for businesses. Accordingly, enterprises participating in the project will have their portal to carry out customs procedures to facilitate the import and export of goods. Until now, 134,000 declarations and 146,000 containers have been facilitated through this project.

According to the general policy of the Customs sector, HCM City Customs Department is asking 200 businesses participating in this project to switch to the voluntary compliance program. In this program, businesses will also be given priority to facilitate and reduce the inspection rate, creating the highest facilitation. While the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) program has required too high conditions, small and medium enterprises cannot meet them. As for the voluntary compliance program, small and medium enterprises can participate completely. Therefore, the General Department of Vietnam Customs also requests to expand this program.

Regarding the formulation of the Decree on the reform of specialized inspection, Mr. Nguyen Huu Nghiep said that in the future, the General Department of Vietnam Customs would work with each line ministry on problems to solve before the Decree is approved. Therefore, Vietnam Logistics Business Association (VLA) and business associations need to have specialized expert groups to participate in these working sessions to create a common voice.

Mr. Nghiep also emphasized that if this Decree was passed, it would create a big revolution in administrative reform. The reason was that, previously, Decree 15/2018/ND-CP on food safety management and Decree 74/2018/ND-CP on quality inspection also raised the risk management problem for specialized inspection, but it was not applicable because there was no focal point.

If this Decree was passed, the Customs would be the focal point. The specialized inspection would be associated with the Customs risk management program. At that time, there would be no situation of goods classified as green channels but it still has to undergo specialized inspection. Besides that, the items that have been checked and satisfied the import quality businesses will be able to import. There was no longer the situation that all shipments had to be checked. In addition, the inspection results of other countries would be accepted. Thus, import and export activities would be maximized while ensuring state management. Therefore, logistics costs would be reduced significantly.

Mr. Pham Quoc Hung, Deputy Director of Dong Nai Customs Department. Photo: C.L

Furthermore, Mr. Pham Quoc Hung, Deputy Director of Dong Nai Customs Department stated that logistics activities were a very large supply chain of goods. In particular, Customs only participated in a very small part: processing import-export and carrying out procedures for export and import enterprises, goods in transit, transshipment, etc. In recent years, customs procedures have been reformed obviously, from manual procedures to electronic cargo clearance performed in the whole sector. The green channel declarations only take 3 seconds to be cleared, while the red channel declarations only account for 4-5%.

Dong Nai Customs Department also always has solutions to facilitate general business procedures and logistics activities. The difficulties and problems of enterprises are recorded and thoroughly resolved in the spirit of facilitation, but they must strictly comply with the law on customs.

Dong Nai Customs Department has many channels to support businesses. Prominent is the Dna-Info program that directly connected Customs authorities with businesses. According to Mr. Hung, there are many cases where businesses do not want to do wrong, but due to incorrect understanding leads to violations. The responsibility of Customs is to help businesses understand the regulations properly. The issues of finalization report, export production, processing, tax, origin, HS code... are timely consulted by Dong Nai Customs, and it was highly appreciated by the business community in the area.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh, Deputy Director of Binh Duong Customs Department commented. Photo: C.L

At Binh Duong Customs Department, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh, Deputy Director, said that with the characteristics of the management area that are mainly export processing and export production enterprises, to facilitate businesses, Binh Duong Customs Department has gradually implemented digital transformation on the basis of closely following the plans of the Customs sector. Up to now, the work of digital transformation, administrative procedure reform, and modernization of Customs authorities in Binh Duong province has gradually come into order, aiming to build an administrative service-oriented, specialized and professional and effective, creating an open environment for investment, production and business activities; thereby contributing to improving the confidence of businesses in tax policies, laws and tax administration.

On May 4, 2022, the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued Decision 707/QD-TCHQ approving the plan for digital transformation of the Customs sector up to 2025, with an orientation to 2030. Grasping the guidelines of the Ministry of Finance and General Department of Vietnam Customs on implementing the plan of digital and smart customs by 2030, Binh Duong Customs Department has also developed a draft of the plan of reform, development and modernization for 2025. The overall goal is to build and develop a modern Binh Duong Customs Department by 2025, basically completing Digital Customs following the orientation of the Customs sector, creating a foundation for building Smart Customs. Besides that, Binh Duong Customs Department is also expanding the number of enterprises participating in the voluntary compliance program to help reduce business costs.