Many business associations agree on policy of one focal point of specialised inspection

The model of reforming specialised inspection in the direction that the customs authority is the focal point will create conditions for improving the competitiveness of enterprises. Photo: T.ANH

A representative of Vietnam Textile and Garment Association highly appreciated the views of the General Department of Vietnam Customs and agreed to accompany Customs authority regarding the method mentioned in the project. With the current number of legal documents on specialised inspection, there is a need to solve this "matrix" to create a view on the management methods of Vietnam's import and export goods in the context of global and comprehensive integration.

“In the context of integration, no agency could supervise from the beginning to the last stage, from the input to the output of businesses like Customs authority. Gathering focal points to Customs was the best, which would help businesses implement fewer procedures, reduce time, costs and stages of specialised inspection for their products," said representatives of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association emphasised.

Commenting on issues in specialised inspection, the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association said the Customs authority should continue to contribute views in the amendments of documents on management and specialised inspection, helping eliminate unnecessary procedures and facilitate sectors to develop more strongly.

Taking anexample about the desire for further reform, the representative of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association said that with orders from 30,000 to 50,000 products like before, delivery time would be from 40-45 days of production. However, at present, enterprises only have 20-25 days, even only 15 days of production. Therefore, the whole customs procedures, receiving goods, inspection and manufacturing only took place in a short time. So, to "race" with the contract schedule, the necessary and sufficient conditions are procedures and steps need to be faster to motivate enterprises to integrate and be able to take pressure on the global playing field.

“From an enterprise's perspective, the more concise procedures, the bigger advantage it is in the negotiations with customers. With that way, enterprises could ensure commitments for the shortest delivery time, competitive prices, the lowest lubrication cost. It is a groundbreaking development platform. Therefore, it is necessary to quickly implement the project, create motivation for businesses soon," the representative of Vietnam Textile and Garment Association emphasised.

Commenting on management and prevention of fraud, representatives of the Textile Association said the Customs authorities should propose solutions to classify enterprises’ import and export goods subjected specialised inspection with enterprises import goods to serve the domestic market, they should have information network system to monitor activities of enterprises and the honesty of enterprises.

“I think that in the integration period, most enterprises have operated business seriously, but we could not exclude the cases where enterprises take advantage of loopholes in the law for cheating. Therefore, no one other than the Customs authority could supervise the input and output of import-export activities, thus, assesses and analyses it to input it into the control system, creating transparency and timely settlement of violations," the representative of Textile Association said.

Sharing the same view, representatives of the US-ASEAN Business Council expressed their support for the scheme since the Government issued Resolution 99/NQ-CP dated November 13, 2019. Commenting on the project, a representative of the US-ASEAN Business Council said that with the wide scope of the specialised inspection issues, it was suggested to choose a plan that has both implementation and complete. Also, an important solution to reform and reduce pressure for Government agencies was to promote public-private partnerships. The representative of the US-ASEAN Business Council analysed the reason for supporting the policy of assigning the Customs authority as the only focal point of specialised inspection because “it was better to have one focal point instead of having to go to many ministries to implement to complete cargo clearance procedures. Now, enterprises just only go to one place which were points of implementing customs clearance. With that solution, businesses would save costs, time and people”.

Besides that, representatives of the US-ASEAN Business Council emphasised that Vietnam has participated in 16 free trade agreements (FTAs), including the Vietnam-EU and the CPTPP, it was expected in the near future, they may have a bilateral free trade agreement between the US and Vietnam. "With the preparation of the Customs authority to become the focal point of specialised inspection, it would be a very good preparation step so that it might have bilateral agreements between the two countries in the future and that would be a condition to facilitate export and import of both sides," a representative of the US-ASEAN Business Council stated.

The Business Association of Logistics Services Vietnam (VLA) said the issue of specialised inspection was still a bottleneck in clearance of import and export goods. The VLA has accompanied with Customs authority in many administrative procedure reform programmes as well as other related agencies. The representative of VLA said the general view of the association was that it was a practical project, so they would support and commit to accompany the Customs authority to put the project into practice because this was the right policy to facilitate businesses.

Many other associations also expressed their support for the policy that the Customs authority would be the focal point for implementation of specialised inspection at border gates. Business associations also expect implementation steps should be specific, clarify practical issues and specific solutions to achieve the objective of actual facilitation, improving competitiveness for businesses.