Six-month results of Customs: Positive, comprehensive

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Customs officers of Cai Lan Port Customs Department, Quang Ninh Customs Department give instructions on procedures for enterprises. Photo: T.Trang.

Reform, facilitate trade

As administrative reform and trade facilitation is an important factor to implement the tasks, the whole Customs sector has promoted administrative reform (PAR) in the spirit of Resolution No. 30c/NQ-CP dated November 8, 2011 by the Government and the direction of the Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, the units have directed reform results with the responsibilities of the heads of units and assessed the level of completion of tasks; promulgating the PAR Index of Customs and self-scoring PAR Index of General Department.

In the first six months of the year, the whole industry has handled and solved nearly 6.3 million records of administrative procedures, of which 98% were handled online and the rest were settled directly or by post.

The Ministry simplified two administrative procedures, proposed simplifying seven administrative procedures, reduced five business conditions and simplified 14 business conditions in the draft Decree amending and supplementing Decree No. 68/2016/ND-CP of the Government. The units in the industry have received, promptly and effectively resolved the feedbacks and recommendations of individuals, organizations and enterprises about administrative procedures.

PAR work; control administrative procedures; improving the business environment, improving the national competitiveness of the customs sector continue to be focused on facilitating businesses, ensuring management requirements, contributing to shortening customs clearance time, minimizing targets in solving administrative problems, especially at the branch level.

As the Standing Agency of the National Steering Committee on ASEAN Single Window, National Single Window and Trade Facilitation, the General Department of Customs has collaborated with other ministries to actively develop opening new administrative procedures, expanding the scope and number of enterprises participating in administrative procedures. As of June 30, 2019, there were 13 ministries and agencies participating in the connection; 173 administrative procedures were submitted to the National Single Window with the total number of administrative records processed on the National Single Window reaching nearly 2.27 million sets of records from more than 30,700 enterprises.

Particularly, from January 1 to June 30, 2019, nearly 482,000 thousand sets of documents were processed from more than 4,300 enterprises.

In specialized investigation work, in the first six months of 2019, the General Department of Customs has actively and proactively coordinated with concerned ministries and branches to carry out the tasks of reforming the private sector and achieved remarkable results. The proportion of specialized investigation goods decreased significantly, the digitalization of industrialized procedures was promoted, indicated that the items were subject to overlapping inspection to submit to the Government for guiding and facilitating people and businesses.

With the role of a focal point, the General Department of Customs has actively and proactively reviewed legal regulations, summarizing difficulties for enterprises to promptly propose ministries, branches to study and remove. Thanks to that, in the first six months of the year, the products under management and industrial sector fell by 12,600 items (from 82,698 in 2015 to 70,087).

Actively implement anti-revenue measures

In addition to administrative reform, trade facilitation, customs supervision continues to be strengthened by Customs in all stages such as promptly proposing amendments and supplements to legal documents; strong application of information technology in customs supervision management; strengthen inspection, supervision, control against fraud, origin forgery, labeling of goods, illegal transfer of goods imported from foreign countries with the words "Made in Vietnam" for inland consumption or continue to export or take advantage of Vietnamese origin to produce and process goods that do not meet the criteria of Vietnamese export origin, affecting the reputation of Vietnam and consumers. Promptly guide and direct local customs departments to step up inspection and supervision of imported waste and garbage.

The risk management work continues to be fully implemented by the Customs sector in all stages of customs operations, achieving important results, discovering 19 violations and signs of violations of import tax and false declarations, HS codes, 57 key subjects; sharing violations through which to alert customs units; setting up customs clearance screening criteria for 27 high-risk businesses, discovering 10 shipments (25 containers) of 4 enterprises declaring the wrong quantity (the tax payable amount increased by about 338 million VND).

From January 1, 2019 to June 15, 2019, the whole branch has examined a total of 19,103 containers; detected 352 containers (accounting for 1.84% of total screened containers), found 98 violations (accounting for 27.84% of the total number of suspicious containers). The provision of pre-screening information has revealed a number of cases such as detection of 3,446 kg of ivory (620 pieces) and 3,977 kg of pangolin scales in a container from Congo entering Nam Hai Dinh Vu port.

Along with continuing to promote economic and social affairs, the General Department of Customs has focused on managing, guiding, inspecting and directing the economic and social activities of the whole force. As of June 30, 2019, the whole industry implemented post-clearance checks on 1,714 cases, of which 714 were at the office of customs declarants (reaching 54% compared to the target of 2019, up 34% compared to the same period in 2018), and 1,000 at the Customs office headquarters. The total amount of tax assessment and administrative penalty is 838 billion VND, equal to 71% compared to the same period of 2018, actually collected into the state budget (including from 2018) to the amount of 927.8 billion VND equal to 90% compared to the same period in 2018.

Particularly, anti-smuggling, trade fraud and anti-state budget collection continued in the first six months. As the Standing Agency of Steering Committee 389 of the Ministry of Finance, the General Department of Customs has coordinated with ministries, agencies and functional agencies to strengthen the work of preventing and combating smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeiting; direct units to implement seriously and effectively many important measures, focusing on building and perfecting the legal basis; improve the capacity of the anti-smuggling force; investment in modern equipment and facilities; synchronous use of professional measures; strengthen coordination, inspection and regular control in key areas and sensitive products.

As a result, in the first six months of 2019, the entire Customs industry took the lead and coordinated with the Police, Border Guard forces to create many projects, successfully destroying many transnational drug lines, detecting and arresting many cases of illegal trafficking, trafficking of narcotics through border and border gates, detecting and arresting 101 cases and 57 suspects, seizing 28.858kg and 156 bricks of heroin; 18,190kg of cocaine; 500kg of Ketamine; 360,962kg and 117,785 synthetic drugs; 39kg of opium; 25,558kg marijuana.

In particular, the Customs force presided over the detention and arrest of 82 cases and 33 smugglers, seized: 28.858kg and 36 bricks of heroin; 17,082kg of cocaine; 502kg ketamine; 360,962kg synthetic drugs and 38,288 synthetic drug tablets of all kinds; 19kg of opium; 25,558kg of marijuana.

Total number of violations of customs law: 8,933 cases, an increase of 13.38% over the same period in 2018, the value of infringing goods is estimated at 1,426 billion VND, an increase of 266.18% over the same period in 2018.

Customs authorities prosecuted 20 criminal cases, down 33.33% compared to the same period in 2018. Transferring other agencies petition to initiate 51 cases. The amount of state budget payment is 157.288 billion VND, an increase of 36.18% compared to the same period of 2018.

Import and export turnover of commodities declined in June VCN- Total State revenue of the Customs sector from import and export activities in the first half ...

Thanks to active implementation of drastic and synchronous solutions and strengthening anti-revenue losses, the results of the state budget collection in the first 6 months of the General Department of Customs achieved positive results with revenue of 175,522 billion VND, equal to 58.4% of the estimate, equal to 55.6% of the target, up 19.4%, equivalent to 28,602 billion VND compared to the same period of 2018 (146,950 billion VND).