Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung: Creating a breakthrough in National Single Window in implementation and facilitating trade

The Minister, as the Deputy Head of the National Steering Committee, would the Minister like to give an overview of the results of ASW, NSW and trade facilitation in the recent past?

Over the past years, with the goal of facilitating trade, enhancing national competitiveness and implementing international commitments, MOF, with the role assigned by the Government as the coordinating ministry with active ministries and agencies implementing NSW and ASW, for reform of specialized management, specialized management procedures for import and export goods, and for persons and means of transport on exit, entry or transit in order to facilitate trade.

With the decisive direction of the Government, the Prime Minister, the National Steering Committee, and the efforts of ministries and branches, the implementation of NSW, ASW and trade facilitation, have achieved positive results, important reforms, simplification of administrative procedures, reduction of time for customs clearance, contributing to improving national competitiveness.

For the implementation of NSW, ASW, by the end of April 2018, there were 47 administrative procedures in 11 ministries and sectors connected to NSW (not counting procedures in the Ministry of Finance), with more than 1.1 million lakes (lines ?) of nearly 21,000 enterprises.

Vietnam is one of the first five countries in the ASW, alongside Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. By April 20, the total number of C / O received in Vietnam from the four countries is 22,029 C / O; the total number of Vietnam C / O sent to 4 countries is 11,112 C / O.

The field of specialized inspection of import-export goods also has many obvious changes. So far, the Ministry of Finance has coordinated with ministries and sectors to amend and supplement 79 legal documents on specialized management and specialized inspection (accounting for 91%); Ministries and branches have reduced the list of goods subject to specialized inspection, equivalent to nearly 4,000 lines of goods subject to specialized management and inspection compared to November 2015; At the same time, the procedures and methods of inspection will be renewed to meet certain objectives in the Prime Minister's Decision No. 2026 / QD-TTg approved by Prime Minister on the Scheme of Solutions to raise the efficiency and effectiveness of the specialized inspection for import-export goods, and the Government's Resolution No. 19-2017 / NQ-CP on continuing to perform the major tasks and solutions to improve the business environment and raise the competitive edge of National Competition in 2017, orientation to 2020, is recognized and appreciated by the business community,

Sir, Minister how have the results had influence on the implementation of the policy of the Government in reform, simplification of administrative procedures for reducing the time of customs clearance of export goods, contributed to capacity building of national competition?

As mentioned above, the results of NSW, ASW and trade facilitation, have contributed to the transformation of specialized management of import and export goods, contributing to the reduction of customs clearance time.

In particular, not only the people and the domestic business community, but also the prestigious international organizations are also appreciative. According to the World Bank (WB) report on business environment, in 2017, the direct clearance at Vietnam’s border gates for exports decreased by 3 hours; imports decreased by 6 hours. The cost of customs clearance at the port of entry for a shipment is reduced by 19 USD. It is estimated that over 11 million declarations in 2017 businesses saved over $ 200 million for customs clearance procedures, saving more than 16 million hours for export warehousing...

According to the World Bank's business environment, in the past two years (2016, 2017), Vietnam has always maintained its position in the top four countries with the index of cross-border trade in ASEAN.

Minister, the efforts of ministries and sectors cannot denied, but this work is objectively still seen as having many obstacles and inadequacies. As the role of the deputy head of the National Steering Committee, what is needed for the bottlenecks to be addressed?

Compared with practical requirements, demands of the business community and targets set by the Government with the implementation for the mechanism of single window and trade facilitation solutions are full of life and still exist.

That is: there are many requests about redundant, overlapping vouchers between agencies; the level of standardization, simplification, and harmonization of administrative procedures is low. Capacity of information sharing between ministries and agencies in implementing administrative procedures is weak; IT systems have not fully met the demand and volume of work to be handled.

On the other hand, enterprises providing logistics services and financial services are not fully connected with the Government agencies to ensure information supply for the state management as well as creating facilities to shorten clearing times. Transportation, loading and unloading of goods at seaports, international airports, warehouses; payment and control of payment documents for cross-border transactions ..., thereby shortening clearance time at the border.

In addition, the progress of revision of legal documents in management and specialized inspection for export goods is still very slow. There are still 8/87 documents which have not been finalized by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 2026 / QD-TTg. In addition, a number of categories must be managed and specialized examination is still very large, as mentioned above...

In particular, up to now, 24 groups of goods have not been promulgated by the Ministry for standards, in which the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has 18 groups of goods; The Ministry of Health has 4 groups; The Ministry of Industry and Trade also has one commodity group; The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has 1 product group.

For the List of Import and Export goods, there are HS codes that have been issued to 26 items which have not been implemented by ministries, of which: 12 are for the Ministry of Industry and Trade; The Ministry of Health has 7 categories and 3 categories of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The Ministry of Construction has 2 lists; The Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment each have 1 category.

To create a clearer shift in ASW, NSW and trade facilitation, what are the breakthrough goals and solutions in the future?

With the urgent demand of the business community and the Government's request to create a breakthrough in NSW, ASW and trade facilitation, the Ministry of Finance has drafted a decision for the Prime Minister on NSW Action Plan, ASW, reform of specialized inspection of trade and import and trade facilitation in the period 2018 - 2020.

The important target in the coming time is for all the administrative procedures related to state management of export and transit goods; Persons and means of transport on exit, entry or transit are provided through NSW in the form of online public service level 4.

Viet Nam will participate and fully implement the ASW in line with the commitments and roadmaps of ASEAN countries; be technically ready to connect and exchange information with non-ASEAN trade partners.

All government agencies directly and indirectly use information about import and export activities; Exit, entry, transit of persons and means of transport must be connected and shared through State Portal of the State through the National Portal.

The specialized inspection of import and export goods shall be carried out on the principle that only border-gate inspection shall apply to commodities affecting social safety and security, quarantine or serious impacts for people’s health. For other items, the quality, conformance, or technical inspection is transferred to post-inspection or based on the assessment of the level of compliance of the enterprise; the level of risk of the goods in each period must be based on System standards, specific standards. In cases it is impossible to promulgate technical regulations and standards; there must be methods of public and transparent inspection.

The draft also sets out specific targets for each year, especially efforts must be made to keep up with the top four ASEAN countries in terms of time spent clearing and freeing goods, people, means related to the one-stop administrative procedures.

At the same time, the breakthrough solutions to realize the above targets will be clearly defined and strongly implemented right after the decision of the Prime Minister approving the Action Plan to promote development for the NSW, ASW, and reform of specialized inspection for export, import and trade facilitation in the period 2018-2020.

Please, thank the Minister!