Preventing and combating smuggling and illegal cross-border transportation of goods faces many difficulties

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Speakers exchanged at the Seminar. Photo: C.L

Many difficulties and problems

That information was informed by Mr. Nguyen Bac Hai, Deputy Director of the Customs Supervision and Control Department (General Department of Customs) at the Seminar "Customs reform, promoting the development of cross-border e-commerce" organized by Customs Magazine on August 11.

E-commerce is an inevitable trend in the current period in Vietnam as well as in other countries around the world. According to the assessment of the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) in the report on Vietnam E-commerce Index (EBI) in 5 years (from 2016-2019), the average annual growth rate of Vietnam was from 25-30%, the average growth rate for the period 2015-2025 is forecasted to be 29%, then Vietnam's e-commerce scale will reach 43 billion USD and rank third in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and Thailand.

According to Mr. Nguyen Bac Hai, although e-commerce has developed strongly, Vietnam does not have its own regulations on management policies and customs procedures for goods transacted via e-commerce. Therefore, import and export goods transacted via e-commerce are usually carried out depending on the mode of transportation.

Therefore, export and import goods transacted through e-commerce encounter problems, including difficulties in preventing and combating smuggling and illegal transportation of goods across borders. Smugglers use communication, exchange and agreement through e-commerce exchanges, thus making it difficult for the process of investigation, verification and clarification of violations. When the Customs authorities discovered violations, these subjects colluded with each other in the form of "sending wrong goods", "abandoning" to evade responsibility.

In addition, violations related to e-commerce transactions often involve foreign elements. Due to the fact that the case has foreign elements, many contents need to be verified and clarified, but the subjects related to the case are abroad depending on the "goodwill" cooperation of the customs authorities of the countries. In practice, many cases require foreign customs authorities to provide information but do not receive a reply or a general or incorrect response. This affects the effectiveness of fighting and handling violations related to e-commerce transactions.

On the other hand, transactions signed by the parties through the form of electronic transactions make it difficult for the work of "examination" and evaluation of evidence. In order to create favorable conditions to support enterprises in promoting and facilitating the negotiation and signing of contracts, the State stipulates many forms of establishing transactions between the parties. Taking advantage of this, violators have forged many records, vouchers and documents to commit violations. Because the parties agree with each other through the form of electronic transactions, it makes it difficult for the assessment and evaluation of evidence before making a handling decision.

Innovation in management policy

Faced with this situation, Mr. Do Hong Trung, Deputy Chief of the Standing Office of the National Steering Committee 389, said that functional agencies need to improve mechanisms and policies, strengthen the fight against smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods in e-commerce activities; strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of state management, synthesize professional measures in inspecting and supervising organizations and individuals participating in e-commerce activities; detect and strictly handle those who take advantage of e-commerce activities to smuggle, commit commercial fraud and counterfeit goods.

For people and businesses, it is necessary to comply with the law and coordinate with functional agencies to share information about illegal acts in e-commerce. In particular, for domestic manufacturing enterprises, they must protect their trademarks by registering for protection of trademarks and intellectual property for their products, using anti-counterfeiting technology, and origin traceability of the goods on the packaging makes it easy for consumers to verify that the product is genuine.

Mr. Nguyen Bac Hai said that, realizing the necessity of innovating management policies, customs procedures for exported and imported goods transacted via e-commerce, the Prime Minister approved the Scheme of managing e-commerce activities for exported and imported goods in Decision No. 431/QD-TTg dated March 27, 2020. In the Decision approving the Scheme, the Ministry of Finance was assigned to assume the prime responsibility for formulating a Decree on customs management of exported and imported goods transacted via e-commerce. Currently, the draft has been submitted by the Ministry of Finance to the Government for signing and promulgation.

From the above analysis, it is found that Vietnam needs to renew management policies and customs procedures for import and export goods transacted through e-commerce.