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How do you assess the status and level of fraud in the current situation, especially in the context of Vietnam signing and implementing many free trade agreements (FTAs)?

- In the past, commercial fraud in goods origin was relatively rare. Recently, this behaviour has begun to increase and is much more complicated. However, it must be clearly stated that the increase in origin fraud is not due to Vietnam joining more FTAs ​​but actually due to the increasingly complex trade.

Fraudulent activities were primarily aimed at preferential C/O types to enjoy tax differences, for example between tariffs committed under FTAs ​​compared with most favoured nation (MFN).

Today, in the context of trade remedies that are heavily applied, trade fraud turns to non-preferential C/O to evade trade remedies. Because of the increasingly complicated trade landscape and the increasing number of trade remedies applied, trade fraud is also more complex and more sophisticated.

When participating in the "war" against fraud, from the perspective of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, what are the outstanding challenges and challenges?

- Origin criteria in the context of FTAs ​​help determine exactly which goods are entitled to incentives and which are not, to reserve incentives to the right goods originating in Vietnam. Therefore, ensuring origin of goods is very important.

Previously, to combat origin fraud, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has implemented many measures including: promulgating relevant legal documents; propagating, disseminating and alerting C/O agencies and organisations; actively inspect, verify or coordinate with foreign partners to inspect and verify.

Up to now, cases of origin fraud often occur with markets applying self-certification mechanism such as the US and the EU. The current cases are mostly referred to non-preferential C/O. In many cases, the partner country does not require a C/O issued by a Vietnamese authority, but allows self-certification of origin and even allows the importer to certify origin.

Enterprises shall declare and take responsibility to customs offices of the importing countries. Therefore, when something happens, authorities will struggle without information provided by the Customs of countries. That is one of the most difficult points.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, if C/O is required by the importing country, it must be issued by a competent agency, so proactive inspection, supervision and tightening of C/O issuance will be more effective in preventing origin fraud.

The second difficulty that can be mentioned is that Vietnam's sanctions are not enough to deter. For example, counterfeiting is only a few tens of million VND. Authorities are also working together to improve this issue. For example, the Law on Handling Administrative Violations and related decrees may make more appropriate and stronger deterrent adjustments.

Recently, some people said the longtime of issuing C/O has caused many difficulties for businesses. Could you share more clearly, how is the issuance of C/O implemented by the Ministry of Industry and Trade to ensure both anti-fraud origin and create favourable conditions for enterprises to export goods?

- Currently, Ministry of Industry and Trade is authorising agencies, organisations and regional import-export management offices of the Ministry of Industry and Trade to grant preferential C/O under FTAs. The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) is the only unit authorised to issue non-preferential C/O and C/O form A, which is entitled to universal tariff preferences (GSP).

There are two dimensions of C/O issuance, which is to prevent origin fraud and also create favourable conditions for enterprises to enjoy export preferences and facilitate exports.

The reality of management objectives is two dimensional like that, so authorities have developed a warning list of risk items. This is an activity to strengthen warning work of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, to implement the Prime Minister's Decision No. 824/QD-TTg of July 4, 2019, approving the project "Strengthening state management to avoid evading trade remedies and origin fraud".

With this list, management agencies will pay attention, even to conduct inspections of production facilities before issuing C/O. However, it is not possible for all business documents to arrive; the management agencies can conduct the inspection, so there is a story of risk management and story of threading.

With the issue of channeling in C/O issuance, from 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has issued specific provisions in Circular 15/2018 / TT-BCT. For example, the enterprise that meets criteria enters the Green channel; how are businesses at risk of entering the Red channel.

How will the Ministry of Industry and Trade pay special attention to and emphasise on how to improve the effectiveness of the fight against origin fraud?

- I think there must be an early warning to the business community. This is a problem the Ministry of Industry and Trade has made very strong.

Regarding list of warnings given, the Ministry of Industry and Trade always tries to scrutinise the criteria to properly warn key products and key markets at risk of origin fraud, no rampant warning and avoid affecting exports.

Besides, propaganda must make sure to inform the business community not to abolish the wrong. Recently, both Customs and the Ministry of Industry and Trade have made many propaganda actions for businesses to understand and abstain from such fraud, in collaboration with functional agencies to prevent fraud.

In the longer term, the solution is related to production, how to improve production capacity, deep processing, and development of domestic raw materials to ensure origin criteria and avoid taxation evasive.

Naturally, besides the aforementioned highlights, daily contents such as strengthening inspection and post-inspection enhancement are still being implemented.