Spring comes early in the HCMC Customs Department

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung and General Director of General Department of Customs Nguyen Van Can work with the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Xuan Binh.

Overcome difficulties to reach the targets

At the Conference on HCM City budget collection and spending in the evening of the last day of 2017, HCM City People's Committee Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong said with a cheerful face, "I really breathed a sigh of relief after Mr. Dinh Ngoc Thang, Deputy Director of Customs Department of HCM City, reported that the revenue from import-export activities was completed at midday on December 30th, 2017.

As the Chairman of the HCM City People's Committee said, the revenue from import-export activities was 109,000 billion VND, accounting for 38.92% of the total revenue of the whole country. The Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City budget collection result is always watched and paid special attention by the leadership levels. When the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department completed the state budget collection targets, the leadership of the Department and nearly 1,900 officers of the unit were likely bursting with joy because their great efforts hand in hand with the business community has achieved the desired results. The Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City had reached the target with the best results, keeping the promise with the Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, leaders of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee and General Director of Customs, Nguyen Van Can, in the meeting in mid-December 2017.

"In order to have this joy, looking back over the past year with the many difficulties and obstacles affecting the revenue collection activities, we have seen it was due to the efforts of the whole staff. Since the beginning of the year, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department organized many delegation teams to share and solve problems for enterprises, got information on import-export activities to have solutions to support businesses, and at the same time, being active in revenue collection... And through that, a series of solutions to support, facilitate businesses were constantly deployed, such as: Organize conference dialogues with enterprises; maintain the guidance and problem-solving teams at the goods clearance points; sign with the specialized inspection units to facilitate the reduction of time and specialized examination procedures...”, said Mr. Dinh Ngoc Thang.

Watching the operation of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, it was seen that in 2017, the unit’s budget revenue was collected under difficult conditions, such as: State budget revenues from petroleum, steel, fertilizer, cars ... were reduced; Implementing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) cut many tariff lines; The situation of smuggling and trade frauds was complicated; The organizational structure of the staff had not been strengthened in line with the actual situation. Therefore, by the end of September 2017, the revenue of the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City reached only 74,400 billion VND, reaching 68.25% of the estimate. In order to complete the budget revenue task, on average, HCM City Customs had to collect 11,000 billion VND per month to the end of the year, meanwhile in the first months of the year, the average income was only 8,700 billion VND. This was a big challenge for HCMC Customs. Mr. Dinh Ngoc Thang said: "Since being assigned to take charge of the HCMC Customs Department, I and the leaders of the Department determined that this was an important political task to complete. The Department leaders took drastic measures and directed the units and the entire staff to try their best to achieve the target assigned.

Therefore, in the "sprinting" month of budget revenue at the end of the year, along with the great staff efforts in the unit, Deputy Director of HCMC Customs Department, Dinh Ngoc Thang, went directly to the units having large revenues to encourage the staff, and at the same time, worked with enterprises to carry out procedures at the sub-departments to exchange, share and motivate enterprises, affirming that the Customs offices would support and create good conditions for clearance of goods on both Saturdays and Sundays.

With determination, creativity, spirit of effort, promoting the tradition of heroic units, the HCMC Customs Department successfully completed the assigned political tasks, especially the task of collecting budget. The State Treasury of HCM City has collected a total of 109.278 trillion dong from import-export activities in the city in 2017. They not only completed the collection task well, HCMC Customs Department also exceeded the plan by 278 billion VND. This result will continue to be a motivation for the HCMC staff of Customs Department to continue their efforts to achieve the targets in 2018.

Customs officers of Hiep Phuoc port border check automobile import. Photo: T.Hoa

Reform, discipline and modern customs management

In 2018, the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City identified as a year of reform and modernization. Programs such as E-payment, E-manifest, Online Monitoring, Online Public Service will continue to be promoted. At the same time, E-doc, E-Message, E-Data, will be apply to increase management efficiency, meet the requirements of Customs reform and modernization.

At the first meeting of the unit in the beginning of the year, Deputy Director of Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City Dinh Ngoc Thang asked all staffs in the unit to renovate working methods, keep discipline, be creativity and responsibility, and work together. Each unit builds up the outline of work, the work plan by year, quarter, month and specific work programs to carry out the tasks assigned most effectively.

On the first working day of 2018, the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City has piloted the automatic customs management system at the seaport in Ho Chi Minh City in line with the guiding plan of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Customs. The specialty of Ho Chi Minh City Customs is to manage many seaports, with more than 20 large and small ports. Thus, the implementation of this system through the application of IT systems to update, exchange and deal with enterprises trading in warehouses, yards and ports will help to manage and supervise the electronics; Responsibilities of stakeholders are clearly defined at each stage, bringing practical benefits to the parties involved. In particular, exporters will benefit first, minimize paperwork exchange with carriers as well as customs agencies in the declaration procedures, speed up the process of goods clearance, and cost savings. As for Customs, this system will help to monitor closely the management, movement and change of goods from arrival to departure and transportation between points under Customs management; shorten the cost and time of procedures for Customs declarants.

Modernization plans of the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City in 2018 are like early spring signals in the largest unit of the Customs sector.