Need to clearly define the boundary between trade facilitation and anti-smuggling and anti-trade fraud

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Director General Nguyen Van Can spoke at the Conference. Photo: T. Binh

The Director General appreciated and praised the Customs units that have made great efforts in anti-revenue loss and tax collection; administrative reform, trade facilitation, management of pre-, during and post-customs clearance; anti-smuggling and anti-trade fraud, which achieved good results and had specific plans and initially affirmed the role of customs in the prevention and combat of banned and fake goods.

The Director General asked the units to perform and complete the assigned tasks well.

Specifically, for the task of budget collection, he promised to Deputy Minister Vu Thi Mai, the Customs sector will strive to exceed 5% of the assigned target. To do this, he requested leaders of customs units at all levels to focus on directing their subordinate units and follow solutions on state budget collection at the Directive of the Director General in the spirit of facilitating trade and controlling revenue-related factors to effectively implement the task of budget collection. In particular, it is necessary to focus on the taxable value, list of price risk management to identify suspicious signs; ruling and post-clearance audit; classification and tax rates.

In addition, he also asked leaders of Customs units to implement collection to the state budget and not to collect over-revenue and impose tax without a sufficient legal basis.

Regarding the modernization and reform of the Customs sector, Can said that the General Department of Customs quickly implemented a project on redesigning the entire IT system of the sector. Accordingly, changing the method of customs management, supplementing and revising functions to meet the changes of legal documents; revising management function of users. This would not affect the former system but also create a breakthrough in the connection in the entire Customs sector.

Therefore, the General Director asked the provincial and municipal customs departments to perform synchronous management. All arising activities related to customs must be displayed in the system for transparent management.

For the current requirement for trade facilitation and anti-trade fraud, the Director General said that in the future, the Customs sector will clearly define the boundary between trade facilitation and anti-smuggling, anti-trade fraud to avoid arbitrary application, affecting import and export activities and customs management.

Accordingly, in order to implement this task, the Customs sector will build control schemes in each period and each time for a number of commodity groups. In particular, inspection and supervision of goods origin shall be focused.

Listening to the direction of Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai on the development of legal policies, Can asked policy makers to have an outline of contents to be amended and perform consultations. Provincial and municipal Customs units must participate in consultations in effective and timely manner.

In addition, he also required the units to improve management capacity, arrange civil servants according to their working capacity in a reasonable manner, choosing the right people for the right job; strictly comply with rules and disciplines in accordance with regulations, functions and obligations.

Customs Guarantee - an effective tool for trade facilitation

Affirming to the Deputy Minister on the implementation of tasks in the last six months, Can said the Customs sector will maintain disciplines and fulfil all assigned tasks well.